Check your diversification setting

The amount you decide to lend to each borrower affects your speed of lending.

When you first make a lending offer, the amount you lend to individual borrowers is set according to how much you're lending. If you lend £500, for example, you money is split over 50 borrowers in chunks of £10.

But if you go on to add a larger amount to that offer, you might want to increase the amount you lend to each borrower in order to get your money lent out faster. So, carrying on the example, if you added £1000 to your initial offer of £500, you could change your diversification so that you lent £20 to 50 borrowers rather than £10 to 100 borrowers. This way your money would get lent out twice as fast.

To alter your diversification, sign in to your account and go to the Lending Offers page in My Lending. Then select Change from the dropdown next to the lending offer, and scroll down to the bottom of the following page.

Rates in the Zopa

To ensure your money gets lent out quickly, your rates need to be within the market ZOPAs (or Zones of Possible Agreement, to give them their full title).

The ZOPA is the range of rates for the last 5 loans agreed in a particular market – so they're a great guide for your own rates.

To check whether your rates are within the ZOPA or not, go to your Lending Offers in My Lending, and select Change from the dropdown next to the lending offer. You'll then see a screen like this:

The ZOPA lies between the ‘Mkt low' and ‘Mkt high' figures, and the circles at the end show you whether your rates are in the market ZOPA or not. Offers in the ZOPA will get lent out faster.

Auto lend

Using auto lend is a great way of maximizing your returns.

It recycles your repayments for you, putting any money that comes back to you straight back onto the Zopa marketplace, under the terms of your most recent lending offer (or any other offer you specify). So your money's never sitting still – if it's not lent out, it's on offer to even more borrowers.

All lending offers made since February 2006 will have auto lend turned on as standard – but if you've got offers that are older than that, you need to sign in to your account, go to your Lending Offers page and select Relend from the dropdown. (Please note – you need to have at least £10 left in your lending offer to start using auto lend.)

More markets

The more markets you offer in, the more borrowers your money is available to, and so the quicker it will get lent out.

It's the Zopa equivalent of offering your goods in more shop windows so that more customers browse your wares.

To offer in more markets, go to your Lending Offers in My Lending, and select Change from the dropdown next to the lending offer. You'll then see a screen like this:

Tick the boxes on the left next to the additional markets you'd like to offer in.