FINTECH STARTUP PARITI PARTNERS WITH ZOPA TO HELP MILLENNIALS PAY OFF THEIR CREDIT CARDS
London, 7th September 2016: UK money management app, Pariti, today announced a partnership with award-winning loan provider Zopa to help consumers pay off their credit cards. The partnership is the first of a number of planned product integrations as the startup builds its ‘marketplace bank’1 for millennials to help them save faster, spend wiser, and clear their debt.
Pariti was authorised by the FCA in June 2016, receiving both credit reference agency and credit broking permissions, as it seeks to pioneer a new ‘marketplace banking’ model. The Pariti app connects to a user’s existing bank accounts, analyses their spending history, and helps them set a target for improvement. This holistic view of a user’s finances enables Pariti to better understand their financial standing and deliver relevant low cost financial products via partners such as Zopa.
The Zopa integration enables Pariti users to discover if they could be paying less for their debt without affecting their credit score, and to apply directly for a consolidation loan through the Pariti app. Research from Pariti2 found that 47% of people with a credit card do not clear their balances each month, and that 60% of these pay only the minimum amount. With average monthly repayments of just 5% of loan value, it would take over eight years to clear a £1700 balance on a typical 20% APR credit card.
“UK consumers are getting ripped off by credit card companies”, Pariti founder Matt Ford comments. “Introductory offers, confusing fees, and unsuitable products have meant that people are paying far too much to borrow, and are getting stuck in high-cost debt. The product integration with Zopa allows us to proactively help reduce their cost of borrowing and pay off debt faster.”
“The market desperately needs more transparent and consumer-orientated financial products, and we simply don’t see enough of this coming from the banks. The recent CMA investigation into retail banking highlighted the need for technology disruption and the benefits of open banking; this partnership with Zopa is a great example of how such a business model can work to really help benefit the consumer,” adds Ford.
This is the latest Zopa partnership to be powered by its proprietary loan application service API, which launched in May this year. The API allows like-minded financial disruptors to tap into Zopa’s proprietary lending technology, risk expertise, and peer-to-peer funding model to bring Zopa’s award-winning loans to their customers.
Commenting on the new collaboration, Zopa’s CEO, Jaidev Janardana, said, “This latest partnership demonstrates the versatility of Zopa’s new loan API. The API is already being used in online retail, and the implementation of our Pariti partnership marks its first use in a fully integrated, in-app application process.
“Our own research shows that many consumers could save money by swapping out expensive credit card debt for a lower-priced Zopa loan, and by working with Pariti we are able to offer this service to even more consumers. We are very excited to be working alongside this likeminded financial disruptor to build the new generation of fairer, more transparent financial services.”
ENDS
ABOUT PARITI
Pariti was founded in 2014 and is located in London. The company is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and entered on the Financial Services Register under firm registration number 705486
Backed by major European venture capital investors, including Index Ventures, Pariti has grown to 70,000 users and has analysed more than £1bn of transaction data since publicly launching just eight months ago.
The Pariti iOS app can be downloaded for free from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pariti/id945284804?mt=8
An Android version will be launched in Q4 2016, with early access signup available here: www.pariti.com
ABOUT ZOPA
Zopa is the UK’s leading peer-to-peer consumer loans service - bypassing banks and their high charges to put more back into the pockets of the UK’s lenders and borrowers. Zopa matches smart borrowers looking for lower-rate loans with lenders looking for higher interest. Since Zopa was founded in 2005, it has arranged more than £1.5 billion in peer-to-peer loans and has been voted MoneySuperMarket's Best Personal Loans Provider 2016.
Zopa Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and entered on the Financial Services Register under firm registration number 563134
www.zopa.com/partnerships
NOTE TO EDITORS
1 Pariti is not a regulated bank itself. Pariti works with global bank data aggregator Yodlee to provide connections to a user’s existing financial accounts, and then offers relevant contextual financial products when needed by the user from third parties.
2 Research conducted on a sample of Pariti users with credit cards (3,100 included in the sample)
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