Interest rates on savings accounts in the UK spent much of the 2010s hovering near zero, leaving savers with a straightforward choice: accept near-nothing from their bank or take on more risk than they were comfortable with. RateSetter was founded in London in 2010 to offer a third option. Its peer-to-peer lending platform matched savers looking for better returns with creditworthy borrowers looking for competitive personal loan rates, with a Provision Fund designed to protect lenders from the impact of bad debts. The model was one of the cleanest expressions of P2P lending's original promise — cut out the bank, share the margin between borrower and lender, manage risk transparently. RateSetter grew to become one of the largest P2P lenders in the UK before being acquired by Metro Bank in 2020. The acquisition reflected a broader pattern: P2P platforms with strong credit models and retail investor bases becoming attractive to conventional banks looking for digital lending capability. RateSetter's legacy is a generation of UK savers who learned that lending your money to other people, properly structured, could be a legitimate alternative to a savings account.