Development finance P2P lender Bricks Finance has received Financial Conduct Authority authorization; firm is not planning to launch an innovative finance individual savings account; will instead focus on expanding partnerships with brokers; also announced a new Bricks Bond product for wealth managers and their clients; firm has been lending since May 2015 with loans of more than £5 million ($6.22 million). Source
Funding Circle reported originations of 306 million British pounds ($375.12 million) in the fourth quarter of 2016; originations accounted for 36% of lending from the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association's (P2PFA) member firms; the platform's lending is close to surpassing Zopa, the market leader in the UK; at the end of 2016 Funding Circle had originated a total of 1.8 billion British pounds ($2.21 billion) while Zopa has originated 1.9 billion British pounds ($2.33 billion); loan volume growth is expected to continue for Funding Circle in 2017 after announcing in January a 40 million British pound ($49.04 million) investment commitment from the British Business Bank and a 100 million British pound ($122.59 million) equity investment; all of the data released by the P2PFA is available on their website. Source
Dow Jones has released its European Venture Capital Report for the fourth quarter; shows venture capital investment in Europe increasing from the third quarter of 2016 and also from the comparable quarter in 2015; European companies raised approximately 2.93 billion euros ($3.11 billion) from 539 deals in the 4th quarter, a 35% increase from the previous quarter; the number of deals also increased by 9% from the third quarter; the UK was a market leader for investment with 122 deals totaling 754 million euros ($799.35 million). Source
The bank has seen behavior in the unsecured personal loan market getting out of control; lenders are trying to battle each other to offer cheaper loans in an uncertain time; Paul Lynam, chief executive of Secure Trust, said, "The competition becomes excessive; lenders tend to continue to fight for market share, which means lower pricing."; this is not the first time Secure Trust has pulled back on unsecured consumer loans; in 2006 they ceased originations only to come back in 2009. Source
Nutmeg will offer clients five portfolio options with automated rebalancing to client risk profiles; platform is also updating its fees to a two tiered fee structure; new fees are 75 bps on the first 100,000 British pounds ($120,310) and 35 bps on anything above that; the individual investment strategies also include fees ranging from 13 to 22 bps; the changes follow private market capital investment of 42 million British pounds ($50.53 million) in 2016. Source
Assetz Capital has originated over 200 million British pounds ($247.02 million) in loans since its inception with 108 million British pounds ($133.39 million) originated in 2016; firm is primarily focused on secured lending for small businesses and property developers; monthly originations have been reaching 26 million British pounds ($32.11 million) and in the fourth quarter total lending for the platform was 45 million British pounds ($55.58 million). Source
P2P ratings and research firm 4thWay has released a list of the UK's top P2P lenders by loan originations; Zopa, FundingCircle and RateSetter lead the market with originations nearing 2 billion British pounds ($2.46 billion); UK property lender Wellesley, which has reportedly been struggling for capital, tops the list with 366.5 million British pounds ($451.48 million) in loan originations. Source
The UK's Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) is actively involved in industry research and is currently doing three alternative finance surveys; much of the research is in conjunction with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), providing insight for its crowdfunding consultation period; CCAF is surveying crowdfunding investors and crowdfunding borrowers; CCAF has also announced it will now be doing a survey on blockchain and cryptocurrencies; as part of the FCA's regulatory study, CCAF is working with 25 crowdfunding and P2P lending platforms in the UK to gain greater insight into the crowdfunding ecosystem. Source
P2PGI will be increasing its allocation to asset-backed loans in its investment trust; the firm will primarily focus on secured real estate loans however it will also be increasing its allocation to invoice credit lending and other secured lending investments; the increased focus on secured loans follows a previous announcement on targeting UK originated loans. Source
Government-owned British Business Bank has added challenger bank OakNorth to its Help to Grow program; allows the company to receive loan funding of up to 2 million British pounds ($2.43 million); OakNorth is the first challenger bank to join the Help to Grow program; the funding follows a recent announcement of three new executive hires for OakNorth to support anticipated lending of 500 million British pounds ($608.39 million) in 2017. Source