On Wednesday, Proplend, a UK based peer to peer lender in the property space, announced it has joined the NACFB. According to the online lender, during a brief period of consultation, its commercial borrowing proposition received a great deal of positive feedback from the association’s active Broker community, prior to the peer to peer platform’s membership being rubber-stamped. Norman Chambers, Managing Director of the NACFB, stated:
“We are delighted to welcome Proplend as a Patron of the NACFB. I have met with Brian and the team a number of times before onboarding and we look forward to continuing the relationship into 2018. Our Member Brokers have warmly received Proplend as they offer further diversity in the property lending space. We encourage all our Members to engage with Brian and explore Proplend’s services to see how they may help their commercial property clients find bridging and mortgage finance solutions.”
Proplend then noted The NACFB is ‘Helping Fund UK Business’ by providing access to more than 1,600 Commercial Finance Brokers Nationwide who use their market expertise and experience to shop around for the right deal. Brian Bartaby, CEO of Proplend, also commented:
“Brokers play an important role in the UK finance market, particularly within our commercial property funding sector. It’s important to know what you’re looking for as well as where to look – this is where specialist commercial brokers come in. Increasingly their market awareness and due diligence point them in the direction of peer to peer lending platforms like Proplend, who are rapidly becoming a larger slice of the lending ecosystem. We can help when high street banks and secondary lenders have been unable to – often providing finance quicker and more flexible, bespoke terms.”
Proplend added that 2017 has been a productive year for its platform, with Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approval and the launch of its flexible Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) earlier in the year, which notably sparked a period of sustained growth and record platform activity. Last month Proplend was shortlisted for best P2P platform at the Credit Strategy F5 awards with Bartaby also named as one of the industry’s rising stars by P2P Finance News.