By Jordan Stodart, chief marketing officer, with Orca Money.

Consultancy giant, Deloitte, recently released its report ‘Marketplace lending: A temporary phenomenon?’ citing the desire for marketplace lending/P2P funds and not online P2P platforms as the only real, material threat to the banking industry.

Neil Tomlinson, Head of UK Banking, concludes that from the report findings, there’s a suggestion that marketplace lending platforms ‘are unlikely to pose a threat to banks in the mass market’ but they are ‘likely to find a series of profitable niches to exploit’.

The Deloitte report is underpinned by one significant question, one that is pertinent to global marketplace lending given recent revelations around U.S giant, Lending Club, and its lending misconduct. The question is: ‘is marketplace lending a disruptive threat or a sustaining innovation?’. The report prescribes four main sources for peer-to-peer lending’s competitive advantage:

The report proceeds to delineate just why and how banks have managed to stave off the competition, so far.

At Orca Money, we would argue that the emergence of independent, impartial and informed resource centres where the market can be researched and compared, at a cheaper cost for the platform, will support growth and reduce costs.

www.orcamoney.com