UK P2P Lending Marketplace Lendy in Administration

P2P Lending marketplace Lendy is in administration according to a statement by the British regulator FCA: “On 24 May 2019, following action taken by the FCA, Lendy Ltd, a regulated Peer-to Peer (P2P) firm, appointed Damian Webb, Phillip Rodney Sykes and Mark John Wilson of RSM Restructuring Advisory LLP as administrators. The same administrators have been appointed for two further related, but unregulated, firms: Lendy Provision Reserve Ltd; and Saving Stream Security Holding Limited. These appointments have been made by the firms, in respect of Lendy Ltd, with the consent of the FCA.”

There is an ongoing FCA investigation into the circumstances that have led to this action.

Lendy was in growing troubles over the past weeks. Lendy was put on a FCA watchlist in January. In April the FCA restricted the actions the company could take ‘[the firm must not] in any way dispose of, deal with or diminish the value of any of its assets and must not in any way release client money without in either case the prior written consent of the authority’.
The interest payments for April, due on May 1st, were delayed for 2 weeks, which Lendy blamed on technical problems with the banking partner. Early today trading on the secondary market was suspended, when the ability to trade was removed. However the trading had nearly stopped anyway as there was little buyer demand.

Lendy finally succumbed the unsustainable level of defaults of the development loans and the unsatisfactory level of recoveries from these. Members of the management were furthermore already engaged in roles in other companies.

There is an outstanding loan portfolio of about 155 million GBP, of which about 90 million GBP are in default.

These events come a year after another property lending marketplace, Collateral entered administration.

Other European p2p lending companies that failed include Boober, Comunitae and Trustbuddy.