An investment with the popular crowd
IT’S the real deal: a new way to invest at excellent rates while putting money into established small businesses. LendingCrowd is the name, an easy-to-use online service that brings people and ideas together, offering investors better returns while giving businesses keener loan rates.
For those fed up with poor returns from traditional savings opportunities LendingCrowd is urging people to “Think outside the bank”.
The peer-to-peer (P2P) lender is based on the idea that anyone looking to invest money should have control, convenience and faster, easier access to competitive products and so achieve better financial returns.
Becoming an investor (with a target rate of earning at six per cent per annum) is as simple as signing up. Growth and Income accounts (minimum investment £1,000) allow you to create a diverse portfolio of investments.
Earnings in a Growth or Income account will be automatically reinvested, continuously diversifying your investment portfolio and ensuring that your money keeps working for you.
Both accounts operate in a very similar way, letting your money work quietly for you while you relax, but the Income account has a key difference: the interest element of earnings is automatically transferred to a separate account for you to withdraw as income.
For the vibrant, growing community of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Britain it means simple, lower cost lending with greater flexibility, straightforward security arrangements, minimum ongoing administration and no exit fees.
The innovative online platform (which has full Financial Conduct Authority authorisation) is combined with a highly experienced credit underwriting team. The result? An impressive customer experience with transparent terms and processes.
LendingCrowd was launched in 2014 since when it has: Seen 5,000 investors sign up. Launched the LendingCrowd Growth ISA.
Made more than 330 loans, from £20,000 to more than £1m, to companies and sole traders across Britain.
Loaned more than £29m – and aims to lend a further £40m this year.
LendingCrowd’s top team has plenty of experience in the field. CEO and co-founder is Stuart Lunn, who has been working with high-growth tech companies for more than a decade, providing investment banking services and supporting capital funding.
Chairman and co-founder is Bill Dobbie with wide knowledge of growing innovative IT names such as cloud computing company Iomart and Maxymiser (software that analyses online information).
In its biggest leap yet, the Edinburgh-based company last month (March) secured £2m funding following a strong 2017. Much of LendingCrowd’s growth is attributed to the launch of its ISA, one of the first Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) products, in February 2017. After 12 months, 82 per cent of investors have beaten the six per cent target return.
And if you needed a reason to think outside the bank, that could well be it…