Growth Street has originated over $67.44 million since its launch in November 2016 with a new CEO and two new executive hires; the firm has now reported 600 new investors on the platform in the five months since its launch; Growth Street provides financing for UK SMEs; the short term financing options appear to be a factor attracting investors; the platform matches borrowers and lenders for 30 days and also allows investors to withdraw funds with notice of 30 days. Source
S&P Global Market Intelligence has released its annual UK Digital Lending Landscape report; as the founder of the first marketplace lending platform in 2005 the UK has an established industry and has received significant regulatory attention and support from the Financial Conduct Authority; the 2017 report provides details on originations from the region's top lenders; it also reports on IFISAs, reserve funds, the government's integration, Brexit and SME lending. Source
UK crowdfunding platform Crowd2Fund has reported year-over-year transaction growth of 4,700%; in Q1 2017 it provided funding to a range of industries with the number of businesses receiving funding increasing by 3,900% in comparison to Q1 2016; growth rates are increasing by 50% per month and the firm expects to transact over GBP10 million ($12.82 million) per month; the firm's IFISA offering has been a factor supporting the firm's growth with 95% of the platform's investments made through IFISAs; the firm offers a variety of capital funding sources for businesses including loans as well as structured equity and debt based financing. Source
Kevin Caley from ThinCats writes on the evolution of the P2P lending industry and why financial advisers should consider the investment for their clients; reports on the industry's growth and the comparable returns of the product; notes the introduction of the IFISA as a factor for greater investment and increased acceptance from financial advisers. Source
The FCA regulates approximately 56,000 firms in the UK; its 2017/2018 business plan outlines three main objectives: 1) protect consumers 2) enhance integrity and 3) promote competition; the annual business plans shows the FCA's commitment to foster fintech innovation but notes that the sector presents some of the broadest risks; its business plan states it will continue to focus on fintech initiatives such as Project Innovate and sandbox development; the FCA also plans to actively engage with international regulators for growth of the sector as well; the entire business plan can be found here. Source
UK crowdfunding platform The House Crowd has now reported five years of operations with fundraising of more than GBP44 million ($56.26 million); the platform offers property crowdfunding and P2P loan financing services; over 15,000 investors with the platform have earned over GBP9 million ($11.51 million) in returns; it has grown its staff to 20 with a number of recent additions and product expansions. Source
Assetz Capital has now been in business for four years with 240 million British pounds ($307.61 million) in loan issuance; the platform focuses on lending for SMEs and says it plans to double its current originations in the next twelve months; the firm offers secured loans that generate annual returns of 3.75% to 18%. Source
The European Investment Fund (EIF) supports venture capitalists across Europe. Its publication, "The European venture capital landscape: an EIF perspective Volume III: Liquidity events and returns of EIF-backed VC investments," studies the investment performance of over 3,600 EIF-backed venture capital investments made from 1996 to 2015. Its primary goal is to identify the effects of the EIF's venture capital activity.
Results across venture capital investments are wide ranging with 4% of exits returning more than five times the investment and generating 50% of the total aggregated proceeds. Among these successful exits are 152 company IPOs of EIF-backed start-ups from 1996 to 2015 on 20 different stock exchanges around the world.
Investment from the European Investment Fund could be an important factor for the UK to manage as it exits from the European Union. Approximately 20% of the EIF's investment has been in the UK and over the past four years the EIF has invested EUR2.8 billion in the UK directly. If funding ceases many venture capital firms may consider moving their headquarters to provide for continued EIF investment in EU locations. Source
Revolut has partnered with Trussle to offer mortgage loan solutions for its clients; the partnership is the most recent in a series of partnerships for the digital only bank, adding to lending solutions from lenders Lending Works and Bricklane; Trussle will provide a multi-lender service to Revolut customers through technology that can recommend mortgage loans for first time borrowers and suggest alternatives for current borrowers. Source
Lloyds Bank is testing biometric authentication technology for its online banking customers; the development is centered around the use of Microsoft's Windows Hello which has fingerprint and facial recognition capabilities and can be used with Windows 10 devices. Source