On Tuesday, peer-to-peer lending platform RateSetter announced it received full regulatory authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). While sharing details about the new milestone, Rhydian Lewis, RateSetter CEO and founder, stated:
“We are proud to receive full regulatory authorisation from the FCA. We have always aspired to have a regulatory framework for our business and our industry. We strongly support effective regulation to protect customers and enable industries to compete and grow. Authorisation has been a long but positive journey during which we have learnt a lot, improved our infrastructure and implemented important changes, notably making the business more transparent. Transparency is vital to our business because our customers need to understand what we do to appreciate the risk of lending on RateSetter. Authorisation is a milestone but not an end in itself and we look forward to working with the regulator and all stakeholders to continue to deliver good customer outcomes and to grow RateSetter.”
RateSetter’s FCA status comes less than two weeks after the online lender celebrated its seventh anniversary. Since its launch in 2010, RateSetter has facilitated more than £2.1 billion in loans and has linked 57,000 lenders with 388,000 borrowers. The platform noted its lenders have earned a total of £82 million of interest on its website, with an average rate of 4.36%.
In 2014, RateSetter became the first peer-to-peer lender to launch with a retail license in Australia and in November 2016, the platform won Best Peer-to-Peer Lender in the FT and Investors Chronicle Wealth Management Awards for the third year running. RateSetter was the highest-rated platform by Which? readers in 2015, 2016 and 2017. RateSetter is regulated by the FCA.