business loans

Bigcarrots – P2C Lending in the UK

wiseclerk 1 Comment

Bigcarrots.com wants to bring business and lenders together. Peculiar name, isn’t it? Images from Bugs Bunny cartoons floated on my mind. Positive indeed – but not at all related to finance.

Bigcarrots applies the concept of peer to peer lending to funding companies. Lenders can lend in chunks of 25 GBP, and a company can apply for unsecured loans of up to 25,000 GBP for 3 to 36 months loan terms. Lenders even have the possibility to exit early by reselling portfolios on a reseller platform.

The level of information provided on the website is low, the FAQ is short. For example their is no description how the risk assessment of applying companies is done by Bigcarrots. The About section gives little information on the background of Bigcarrots. I used the contact form to ask for more information, but did not receive an answer.

New at Smava – business loans, larger amounts, longer terms

wiseclerk

German p2p lending service Smava.de made some changes:

  • Borrowing for business purposes is now allowed. The borrower still is an individual person but is no longer limited on private purposes of the loan
  • Borrowers may borrow up to 25,000 Euro (approx 39,200 US$), previously the maximum was 10,000 Euro
  • Maximum amount any lender can invest in the marketplace is raised to 100,000 Euro (previously 25,000 Euro)
  • Loan terms are now selectable 36 or 60 months (previously only 36 months); the insurance pools (Anleger-Pools) are seperated by credit grade and term. This complicated construct will influence lenders when deciding to bid on loans that are otherwise comparable but differ in loan term, since the level reached in the insurance pools directly impacts each payment rate.
  • Bad debt sales rates have been lowered for lower credit grades (previously it was 22.5% to 25%, now it is 15% to 25% depending on credit grade)

(Source: P2P-Kredite.com)

Since it's launch in February 2007 Smava has funded 457 loans with 2 million Euro (approx 3.14 million US$) loan volume. 8 loans have defaulted and currently 9 loans are late.