Several lenders have reported a lack of retail investment interest in their products, which has hampered their ability to grow.

Finance expert Claire Matthews, from Massey University, said it was not a surprise that some peer-to-peer operators had not had the funding they expected.

“Initially peer-to-peer platforms had a novelty factor which would have attracted some investors, plus there are the ‘early adopters’ who are keen to be part of anything new,” she said.

“Now we are moving in to a new ‘mature’ phase of the peer-to-peer platform and it requires more mainstream buy-in.  There will always be plenty of borrowers, who can’t or don’t want to borrow from traditional lenders such as banks.  But the risks of being involved with a peer-to-peer platform are quite different for an investor.

“It is reasonable that potential investors are now saying, effectively, that the return is not sufficient for the risk that is being taken.  Of course, the peer-to-peer platforms have to be careful about raising rates because that will increase the cost to borrowers at least some of whom will return to traditional lenders if they can get a better rate.”

At Zagga which focuses on lending against property as a first registered mortgage, Marcus Morrison said the main issue was that investors fell at either end of the risk curve. Some were very risk averse while others were very keen to take risk - in return for an interest rate that his platform didn't consider was fair to borrowers.

He said it was a matter of education, to explain to investors that the Zagga model was different to unsecured options in the market.

Financial Markets Authority chief executive Rob Everett said a few small players were doing very little, in terms of volume.

“I think in terms of helping small-to-medium-sized businesses get themselves funded to innovate, grow, and employ more people, we haven’t seen that as the designers of the regime would have wanted to see. These things do take time. It’s a relatively small economy.”

He said, to be successful, there needed to be more players focusing on small businesses. That might appeal to more investors than the straight consumer lending that many operators were doing.

“I think that if the supply was there, the investment demand would be there. That’s the UK experience. It’s a question of businesses being persuaded that they get the money they need from the banks, and there has been a reasonably healthy credit cycle, so maybe they feel that they’ve been able to get what they need,” he said.

“Maybe the other reason is that they don’t want to expose their businesses to the sort of scrutiny you tend to get when you go through those sorts of processes. I don’t know, but my gut feeling is that if those opportunities were there, investors would lend into it.

“I think it’s around businesses not feeling that survival way for them to borrow at this point. It’s a shame, because that’s what they were set up for. Maybe when interest rates go up, you might see some people feeling that they really don’t want to pay what the bank is charging them, and see whether they do better in peer-to-peer lending, but it’s not entirely clear to me if that will be the case."