Blend Network Interview

To start with, could you tell us a little bit about Blend Network: in particular, what is it that you offer to investors, and what is your process to find good borrowers?

Blend Network is a peer-to-peer property lending club. We connect investors who are looking to earn a good return on their money with small and medium experienced property developers who need funding for their property projects. We offer our investors the opportunity to invest on property-secured loans that will earn them double-digit returns – last year, the average return for our lenders was 12% p.a. and some of our loans had a 15% return p.a. All our loans are secured against first-charge on the property and we have zero default on our loans. In regards to the borrowers, these are very experienced small and medium property developers looking to build more affordable houses across the UK. For example, the borrowers behind a typical loan we did last year were two very experienced property developers, they had nearly 60 years of property development among them. They approached Barclays to get a loan to build eight houses, Barclays said no but referred them to us. We were able and very happy to fund this loan, the project is doing great and the borrowers have already made an early repayment. This is the profile of our typical borrower at Blend Network. We find our borrowers both directly and through our network of introducers.

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Kuflink Adds a Secondary Market

Last week Kuflink added a secondary market to their platform, allowing investors to buy and sell existing loans. Giving more details on how it works, Kuflink said:

Lenders can list most loan parts on the market, although some restrictions apply – loans in default or less than a month from their redemption date are not eligible, for example. Loan parts must be sold for par value.

The platform will charge a nominal 0.25% administration fee to the seller, whereas the market is free to use for buyers.

From the Kuflink Press Release

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Collateral Administration Update

I wrote a post back at the start of March shortly after I heard that the UK P2P lender Collateral went into administration. As an investor in some Collateral loans it took me by surprise, and at that time I was hopeful of a recovery of the capital invested. This post is to look at some of the developments which have progressed since then. Read more “Collateral Administration Update” →

Where do you go when the bank says no?

The following article is a guest post from Yann Murciano, CEO of Blend Network.

Since November 2016, as part of the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, the UK’s nine major banks are legally required to refer those SMEs they refuse to finance to an alternative provider. The last figures published in August 2017 for the first nine months of the scheme were quite unimpressive: less than 3% of small businesses referred to alternative lenders via the bank referral scheme ^[1] were funded, that is some £4m in completed funding deals for the first nine months of the scheme. However, despite a sluggish start, we are now seeing an increase in conversion rates. Recent months have showed a significant pick-up in referrals, partly due to promotion of the scheme by the banks themselves. Of course, full effectiveness of the scheme will take time to achieve but if recent trends are something to go by, the trend looks encouraging. Read more “Where do you go when the bank says no?” →

New Offer: £100-£250 Cashback with Kuflink

P2P lender Kuflink are offering £100 cashback for a minimum £500 investment on the platform. Although originally this offer was available quite widely, as of October 2018 Kuflink had reduced it to £50. Kuflink have confirmed to me that they will continue to offer the original £100 to those who sign up via the link below. They have also added a £250 cashback for those investing over £5000, with the same link.

Read more “New Offer: £100-£250 Cashback with Kuflink” →

Collateral Goes Into Adminstration

The pawn-come-property secured lender Collateral has gone into administration. Read more “Collateral Goes Into Adminstration” →

Property Moose Suspending Secondary Market

Property Moose announced last week that they are suspending their secondary market at the end of the month, February 28th.

Read more “Property Moose Suspending Secondary Market” →

Lending Works rates rise to 6%

Lending Works are raising their rates from tomorrow (Monday 22nd Jan). The 3 year product will rise from 4.0% to 4.5%, and the 5 year from 5.5% to 6.0%. Read more “Lending Works rates rise to 6%” →

Assetz Capital launches IFISA

Assetz Capital, one of the UK’s largest P2P lending platforms with over £400 million lent out, have launched their IF ISA (Innovative Finance ISA). They are giving access to the same investment products offered to non-ISA accounts:

You can now invest in all of our automatic accounts tax-free, with investment into the Manual Lending Account (MLA) using your ISA allowance available in Q1 2018.

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Trouble at Spain’s Largest P2P Lender

P2P-Banking and El Espanol have broken worrying news over the past couple of days. Comunitae, a large European peer to business lending platform, have detected internal fraud and are suspending activity – probably shutting down.

What Happened?

Comunitae is Spain’s largest P2P lender, and one of the largest Euro-SME lending platforms. Founded in 2008, they’ve raised over €3.5 million in external funding (for platform development). Data from Altfi shows an all time lend of around 45 million euros, 9 million of which was in the year to date.

At the start of November, Comunitae sent out a letter to its investors explaining that they had interally detected fraud affecting 18 guarantors. El Espanol explains that their own risk analyst was complicit in a form of payment fraud with various businesses. Comunitae state in their investor email that there are now criminal proceedings against the employee in question. Read more “Trouble at Spain’s Largest P2P Lender” →