A rapidly growing banking trend, research by The Gartner Group consultancy predicts that social banking platforms such as Zopa's (P2P) lending network will grow to a 10% share of the worldwide market for retail lending and financial planning by 2010.

"Zopa is a financial marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow money. We provide the underwriting and risk management and experience very low levels of fraud and default," said Murray Bailey, Zopa's UK Risk Director. "Ethoca's innovative and additional dimension can only have a positive impact."

Zopa already has over 150,000 people who have executed "social loans" through its services, but its strict risk controls mean that 50% of loans are still turned down, implying a lot of room for growth based on better understanding of risk. This announcement builds on the growing momentum among financial services, online retailers and gaming operators in the UK and worldwide joining together through Ethoca's collaborative fraud management services.

From online retail to electronic payments to online charities to gaming, global leaders see Ethoca's collaborative fraud management service as a way to inform their decisions and enhance their profitability on thousands of transactions every day. Ethoca is the only service that allows companies to benefit from the payment experiences of other companies. Accepting more of the "right" types of transactions increases revenue, and declining the "wrong" ones reduces losses and non-payment. According to recent research, better fraud management can result in e-businesses recovering more than $30 billion in previously foregone annual revenue.

"Zopa is a very exciting addition to the Ethoca network because it clearly demonstrates the value of collaboration in a non-traditional business model. We are only at the beginning of growth in P2P services enabled by the internet, and Ethoca's collaborative fraud management platform is an excellent fit for assessing risk between individuals who have no prior business or personal relationship. We continue to march forward in the effort to build a truly global cross-industry effort to halt and reverse the growth in online fraud through our collaboration technology," said Andre Edelbrock, Ethoca's President and CEO. "If you sell online, it doesn't matter what kind of business you are, you will increase your returns with Ethoca. That's why we're turning competitors into collaborators."