Zencap says Shortage of New Loans is Caused by New ‘Retail Investor Protection Act’

German marketplace Zencap says the ‘Retail Investor Protection Act (Kleinanlegerschutzgesetz)’, passed into law in July 2015, is the main cause for a shortage of new loans on offer to retail investors on the platform. While Zencap welcomes regulatory guidelines, the company thinks that this law was not thoroughly thought out. Zencap stated: ‘For investors it is confusing that an investment into loans to companies for an amount of more than 100,000 Euro should be subject to different regulatory conditions than loans below that amount.’ (own translation from German original source).

While Zencap could offer loans regardless of size to retail investors in the past, it is has now restricted its offer to retails investors in Germany to loans up to 100,000 Euro as it would be forced to serve a prospectus (‘Vermögensinformationsblatt’) for which the borrowing company would be liable.

Zencap explains that the shortage of new loans for retail investors is not a result of the increased institutional funding supplied by Victory Park Capital and reconfirms that all investors will be treated equal and no preferential access is granted.

Zencap says it is working hard to increase borrower demand and expects new marketing and sales initiatives to yield in an increased number of listed loans soon.