Last post: Jul 9, 2014
Funding Circle was established back in 2010 as a peer-to-peer lender with a view to helping businesses that may have been struggling to raise finance through the more traditional route provided by banks by bringing them together with people looking for a better return on their savings.
Funding Circle was established back in 2010 as a peer-to-peer lender with a view to helping businesses that may have been struggling to raise finance through the more traditional route provided by banks by bringing them together with people looking for a better return on their savings. We thought you might find it interesting if we brought you up to date with some recent developments at Funding Circle.
Who would have thought that at the time of writing this article (7th July 2014) that some 30,362 UK investors had lent £308,086,540 to over 5,000 businesses with the involvement of Funding Circle.
Not only have many thousands of individual investors supported UK businesses but funding has also been provided by the Government, universities, local councils and private organisations. For instance, only last month it was announced that Santander UK would be referring small business customers considered more suitable for peer-to-peer lending to Funding Circle.
Funding Circle will now lend from £5,000 up to an increased figure of £200,000 on an unsecured basis with only a personal guarantee(s) being required thus no doubt enabling more creditworthy businesses to obtain a higher level of affordable unsecured funding. Funds can be provided for the likes of working capital and one-off business expenses repayable over a period from 6 months to 5 years.
Back in May 2014, Funding Circle decided to carry out a one-month trial providing "Whole Loans" to businesses. This involves one investor providing the full amount of the loan rather than numerous investors becoming involved in an auction for one loan resulting in a speeding up of the process. The trial proved a huge success with around £1.3 million advanced as a result of which it was decided to continue with the trial for a few weeks before rolling it out to all investors.
In recent months, Funding Circle has entered the property loans market providing funds for property development finance, residential buy-to-let finance, commercial mortgage finance and commercial buy-to-let (investment) finance. The minimum advance is £150,000 up to a maximum of £3,000,000 over a period of typically 5 to 20 years with a maximum LTV of 80%. They have already completed on at least 10 such loans.
Here at Choice Loans we will continue to keep you updated about further developments but feel free to contact us on 01494 410125 if we can be of any assistance.
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