P2P lending in Spain is gaining momentum
A study conducted by the P2P platform Robo.cash has shown that the number of search requests associated with P2P lending in Spain grew from 9,400 in July 2015 to 12,000 in June 2019. A significant increase of the queries in 2017 with a peak in March correlates with the growth of Spanish alternative finance market by 23% compared to 2016.
Conducting the study, analysts counted requests related to P2P lending in Europe for the past 4 years. Among countries with the largest number of P2P platforms in the region – Great Britain, Italy, Germany, France and Spain – the latter showed the most obvious upward trend in the popularity of P2P lending.
Whereas France was leading by the number of related requests in 2015, Spain reached its level at the beginning of 2017 and has been maintaining steady positions since then. The number of queries associated with P2P lending in the country peaked in March 2017 and equaled 18,800. This rise correlates with the data of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance – in 2017, Spain raised €160 mln through alternative finance platforms, 23% more than in 2016. Analysts of the company assume that one of the reasons for this trend could be the vote of the British parliament in March 2017 to start the Brexit procedure. The likelihood of this event could force continental investors to seek new opportunities in other countries. Apart from Spain, there was a growth in popularity of P2P lending in France and Italy at that time too.
Another rise in the number of search requests in Spain is observed in January 2018. According to the analysts, at that point, local investors could be looking for alternative ways to earn money due to the economic unrest caused by the Catalan independence referendum at the end of 2017.
The number of Spanish investors on the P2P platform Robo.cash has always been stable since its launch in 2017. Today, the country ranks second by this value with 10.8% of registered users on the platform.
Methodology:
To assess the popularity of P2P lending in Spain, the company used Google AdWords statistics on search queries related to P2P lending. The service reflects the average number of requests per month. To compare different countries, the absolute values were recalculated as relative, taking into account the size of the population.
