Unbolted Partners with H&H Classics

January 28, 2016January 28, 2016 wiseclerk

British p2p lending marketplace Unbolted has announced a partnership with car auctioneer H&H Classics. The finance deal will allow auction consignors to access a significant portion of the value of their car or motorcycle well in advance of sale. The supply agreement creates a sale advance facility providing up to 70% of the low-estimate valuation to the consignor where an agreement is struck.

Unbolted lets individuals plus small and medium enterprises borrow against their assets.

The two partners in the project are also developing a new financing solution for buyers to help them capitalise on new opportunities at auction.

Nick Delaney, Business Development Manager of H&H Classics, says: ‘Both types of facility are safe and reliable methods designed to bring liquidity to asset-rich collectors and entrepreneurs, allowing them to move quickly on opportunities rather than missing the boat while negotiating cumbersome and costly credit facilities with banks.’

Continue reading →

Investly Launches Invoice Finance for UK SMEs; Raised 600K from Speedinvest

January 27, 2016January 27, 2016 wiseclerk

Tallinn based p2p lending marketplace Investly, which recently launched an invoice finance product in Estonia announced the launch of the service for UK SMEs. The invoice finance option will give UK businesses almost instant access to much needed working capital to aid growth.

The launch comes after a successful European launch of the platform in Estonia 18 months ago, and a subsequent investment of 600,000 Euro from Venture Capital group, SpeedInvest.

Until now, invoice finance options â€“ whether through traditional channels or via other peer-to-peer platforms â€“ have been complex and laden with fees and charges.

Investly says it has simplified the product so that, once credit checks have been cleared, SMEs can sell invoices to investors within two days. And therefore assign the money to aid growth, enabling them to be the best they can possibly be without the cash flow worries. Initially, the invoice finance product will be available to any UK SME who passes the platforms sign-up criteria, which includes credit checks and confirming their identity. Further safeguards are put in place such as directorsâ€™ checks and potential guarantee.

Ruth Chamberlain, Investlyâ€™s UK Country Manager, said: â€œLong payment terms are crippling for UK SMEs. They are dependent on cash to sustain and grow their business, but as they invest in products and people, they may not get money on work completed a month or even 120 days after issuing their invoice. This is putting many businesses at risk â€“ especially smaller ones and those that depend on payments from one or two key customers.â€ Continue reading →

Saving Stream – My Loan Portfolio after Year One

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 wiseclerk 7 Comments

I started investing at the UK p2p lending marketplace Saving Stream in December 2014. The last Saving Stream review I wrote was 9 months ago, therefore time is right to post an update on how my portfolio is developing.

For those p2p lending newbies that have not heard of Saving Stream so far here are the basics again:

Bridge loans, secured by commercial properties (first or second charges)
12% interest (interest rate is the same on all loans on the platform)
0% fees for investors (on primary and secondary market)
All loans prefunded; investors earn interest from the day they invest money into a loan
A provision fund shall provide a buffer against default losses
Open to international investors

To deposit money I used Transferwise and Currencyfair saving me bank fees and allowing me to know the currency exchange rate in advance.

I made 5 deposits over time totalling 5,441 GBP (7,403 EUR).

Screenshot: Top of the list of my Savingstream loan portfolio

My portfolio grew nicely and yields a very got ROI

As you can see in the image, my original 5,441 GBP grew to 5,967 GBP current portfolio value. I reinvested all repayments and interest earned. It sure is nice to earn 60 GBP interest per month (1% of live loan parts amount). My ROI is actually a bit over 12% so far as I profited from several cashback offers. I did not experience any defaults on my loans so far.

The new website

Late in 2015 Saving Stream overhauled the website. Major improvement is that this fixes the situation which frequently occured on the old website, where loan parts sold/bought on the secondary market might get stuck when a loan amount left on offer accidently ran into a negative value and needed manual operator intervention to clear. The new website also introduced the two step verification security option. I enabled this security feature for my account. Continue reading →

International P2P Lending Services – Loan Volumes December 2015

January 4, 2016 wiseclerk

The following table lists the loan originations for December. This month Funding Circle led slightly ahead of Ratesetter. Funding Circle UK also crossed the milestone of 1 billion GBP loans originated since launch. I added two more platforms to the list. I do monitor development of p2p lending statistics for many markets. Since I already have most of the data on file I can publish statistics on the monthly loan originations for selected p2p lending services.

Investors living in markets with no or limited choice of local p2p lending services can check this list of marketplaces open to international investors.

Table: P2P Lending Volumes in December 2015. Source: own research
Note that volumes have been converted from local currency to Euro for the sake of comparison. Some figures are estimates/approximations.
*Prosper and Lending Club no longer publish origination data for the most recent month.

Notice to p2p lending services not listed: Continue reading →

Ratesetter Updates Legal Structure of the Provision Fund

December 17, 2015 wiseclerk

Ratesetter informed its investors that it will update the legal structure of the provision fund by changing it from a trust to a limited company. Ratesetter was the first UK p2p lending marketplace to introduce a fund to protect investors against defaults (up to the amount available in the fund). So far no retail investor has lost a penny on Ratesetter since the launch in 2010.

Excerpt from the announcement: Continue reading →

International P2P Lending Volumes November 2015

December 1, 2015 wiseclerk

The following table lists the loan originations for November. Funding Circle overtook Zopa measured by new volume followed by Ratesetter. I added two more platforms to the list. I do monitor development of p2p lending statistics for many markets. Since I already have most of the data on file I can publish statistics on the monthly loan originations for selected p2p lending services.