Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
LendingCrowd, one of UK’s fastest growing P2P lending platforms, announced it has obtained full authorization from the country’s financial services regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It is effective from November 1, 2016.
As per the company statement, thus it becomes UK’s second P2P platform and first P2P lender to small and medium enterprises to move from interim to dull authorization status.
“Peer-to-peer investing is growing in popularity every day, we are supportive of industry regulation and we’re extremely pleased that LendingCrowd has reached this milestone,” said Stuart Lunn, CEO and co-founder of the platform. “Unquestionably, it adds credibility and trust in a relatively young marketplace in which our aim is to be a major player. It also means that we can look to launch our ISA product both directly to investors and through investment platforms, several of which we are already engaged with.”
LendingCrowd was launched in 2014 and has facilitated loans totaling £8 million. It also has over 2000 investors signed up to the platform. Extended loans range from £20 000 to more than £1 million. In 2015 LendingCrowd was the intermediary of one of the largest P2B loans in UK and helped diet food delivery service Diet Chef raise £1.5 million.
UK’s alternative finance sector is undoubtedly the largest in Europe with a total volume of £3.2 billion in 2015, up 84% from 2014.