And the award for best banking Website goes to...

We don’t usually give much currency to business awards on Finextra. In the fintech sector they’re usually just another money-making wheeze dreamt up by desperate advertising execs at trade media outlets. You know the form: buy a table for £4000 and you too could walk off with best OMS widget award for 2007. Satirical re-insurance Website riskbitz does a nice job of debunking the whole business here.

But, I’m pepared to beak the habit of a lifetime and congratulate peer-to-peer lending outfit Zopa for beating off competition from Bank of America, Chase Online and The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, to scoop the annual Webby award for best banking Website.

Considering Zopa’s whole marketing ploy is based on the fact that it is not a bank, that’s some achievement.

Zopa’s win follows its scoop of a Red Herring 100 Europe award and recent announcements that the number of UK members has reached 140,000, a new global CEO has been appointed, and additional investment of $12.9 million has been secured to fund continued development of the UK business and expansion into North America.