On Wednesday, online lender Funding Circle announced investors lent more than £113 million to over 1,700 UK businesses throughout the month of February. Funding Circle also reported that over the last six months investors have helped more than 10,200 small businesses be able to gain access to financing. More than 678 million has been lent through its platform from August 2017 to February 2018. Breakdowns of February 2018 included the following:
In regards to loans that defaulted last week, Funding Circle reported:
“As part of lending to businesses, a small percentage will not be able to fully repay their loan. This is known as bad debt and is a normal part of business lending. We believe diversification, where you lend no more than 1% of your total to each business, is the best way to reduce the impact this has on your return. Our automatic lending tool will help you diversify by splitting your investment across lots of businesses. We suggest lending £2,000 or more, so you can lend to at least 100 businesses, with no more than 1% going to each one.”
