UK-based alternative finance lender for SMEs, LendingCrowd, announced on Thursday it has received full authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and considers itself UK’s second peer-to-peer lending platform and first peer-to-peer lender for SMEs to move from interim to full authorization status, which went into effect on November 1st.
Stuart Lunn, CEO and co-founder of LendingCrowd, stated:
“Peer-to-peer investing is growing in popularity every day, we are supportive of industry regulation and we’re extremely pleased that LendingCrowd has reached this milestone. Unquestionably, it adds credibility and trust in a relatively young marketplace in which our aim is to be a major player. It also means that we can look to launch our ISA product both directly to investors and through investment platforms, several of which we are already engaged with.”
Since its launch in 2014, LendingCrowd has reportedly facilitated loans totaling to £8 million and has more than 2,000 investors signed up to its platform. Deals range in size from £20,000 to over £1m million. Last year, the lender notably helped Diet Chef complete one of the biggest ever peer-to-business deals seen in the UK in a £1.5m debt finance transaction. Lunn recently explained:
“The platform has achieved a great rate of return over the last year, with numbers that compare very favourably to other P2P lenders in the UK and internationally. Our investor base is telling us that as well as being happy taking on risk to achieve a rate of return that beats most other investments, there is a real satisfaction level involved in the process of supporting the growth of some of our most exciting SMEs.”
Last month, LendingCrowd announced the launch of its new P2P deal to investors. The platform stated that by investing £5000, investors will get a 2.5% joining bonus allocated to their accounts and access to a lending platform that achieved an 8.1% rate of return over the last twelve months.
