A Visit With Assetz Capital

On Wednesday I flew to Manchester on invitation of p2p lending service Assetz Capital and met with Managing Director Andrew Holgate and his team. I learned how they operate and we spent the day discussing various aspects of p2p lending.

Assetz Capital does p2p lending to businesses secured by assets – mostly property. While the loans are big (usually the minimum loan size is 100,000 GBP), investors can lend starting with amounts of just 20 GBP. But typical investments are higher. In fact their first loan, which was for the amount of 1.5M GBP was funded by just 150 investors. Andrew Holgate pointed out that since each loan is backed by a security there is not as much need for investors to diversify to spread risk as with other p2p lending platforms.

Assetz Capital went live in April 2012. The founders and the management have extensive experience in finance, especially SME funding. One of the founders, Stuart Law, is the CEO of Assetz Group which has a 15 years track record in property investments. Assetz Capital could utilise the huge existing database of over 65,000 customers of Assetz Group when it started marketing its loan offers to investors.

Initially the main task at hand was to build trust. Trust not only on the investor side, but also from brokers, the main source of loan requests. Brokers wanted to be able to rely on the referred, approved loan requested getting funded within reasonable time (e.g. 2 weeks). While this was challenging in the beginning, Holgate says Assetz Capital has no problem now of getting multiple large loans funded simultaneously. Some of the loans fill as fast as 4 to 5 hours.  To get there Assetz Capital integrated underwriters into the process.

After Assetz Capital has thoroughly vetted the applying business and the underlying security – in fact every business is visited in person by an employee of Assetz Capital, it is presented to large investors which will then check the offer themselves and underwrite it – effectively saying they are prepared to finance large chunks of the offer.

Once the loan is on the marketplace, investors bid on it. Investors do see all documentation available on the loan and Assetz Capital says investor scrutiny and feedback is very valuable. Each loan request has a Q&A section where investors can comment.  Between funding and drawdown it usually takes a few weeks, depending on circumstances. In this time all documentation required is completed (e.g. first or second charges).

Assetz Capital is 100% owned by the management. Even so the business is very young it already turned profitable.

Broader product range

Assetz Capital started p2p lending with loans backed by real estate. Gradually they are now moving in financing a broader range of loan purposes, but always backed by asset securities. Assetz Capital wants to become the single access point for SME finance needs, as banks are no longer fulfilling that role. A surprising point in the talks for me was, when Holgate said, that actually their interest rates are higher than those charged by the banks, which is possible since many SMEs don’t get the funding they need from the banks any more.

On the investor side Assetz Capital will take steps to reduce the average time-span between funding and drawdown for investors. The company also considers in the medium term to grade loans into risks classes. At the moment different risks perceived by the risk manager at Assetz Capital are priced into the interest rates of the loans. So far Assetz Capital has refrained from assigning risk grades as it might be seen as giving investment advice to investors, which Assetz Capital does not do. Assetz Capital might also make it easier for investors to automatically invest into loans of a given risk/interest range. So far this was not necessary as the majority of investors enjoyed the process of the individual selection of loans. Continue reading

Money360 – P2P Real Estate Loans

Money360 offers a first in p2p lending: To my knowledge they are the first live p2p lending service applying the concept to financing real estate loans.

Loan sizes are much bigger than seen before in p2p lending. Minimum loan amount is 200,000 US$, maximum is 5 million US$. The minimum a lender can invest in an individual loan is upscale too: 50,000 US$. This does fit the target audience though as only accredited investors residing in California can join as lenders.

Loans are secured: Each Lender is listed with an undivided fractional interest on the promissory note and deed of trust.

When the transaction is complete and the loan is closed, Money360 will receive a closing fee of 2% of the loan amount. This fee is paid by the Borrower, typically out of the loan proceeds. Money360 charges the Lenders an annual servicing fee of 1.5% of the loan amount for providing all loan servicing functions. Continue reading

P2P Lending With Cars as Collateral

German p2p lending service Auxmoney.com has introduced a new feature this week. Borrowers can now offer a car as collateral for a p2p loan.

The user pays a fee of 9.95 Euro to document this in his loan listing. Pictures of the car, the model and the mileage and the estimated price a car dealer would pay for car are displayed in the listing. In this example listing, the borrower puts up his BMW as collateral. The estimated value covers 101% of the loan amount requested. In general the car can cover any percentage of the loan amount – it does not need to cover the full amount. Furthermore there is information on the type of insurance coverage.

If the loan is funded, then a contract defines the terms of the assignment as security. The borrower continues to drive the car (obviously he is not allowed to sell it without the consent of Auxmoney), but needs to deposit the certificate of ownership (motor vehicle registration certificate) at Auxmoney. This arrangement costs the borrower 2 Euro per month.

Should the borrower fail to repay the loan, then Auxmoney has the right to sell the car.

While a car as collateral does in not provide fail-safe security (many things can happen), it will be probably perceived by lenders as one feature for higher security against defaults.

The Wiseclerk Auxmoney stats page will in future track the performance of p2p loans secured by cars.

This is a first for p2p lending – but soon another p2p lending service will follow. Pärtel Tomberg, CEO of Estonian p2p lending service Isepankur told P2P-Banking.com earlier this month, that Isepankur will introduce cars and real estate as collateral for p2p loans in the second half of 2010.

(Photo by pedrosimoes7)