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Two-thirds of the borrowers who access loans from Funding Circle via the Coronavirus Business Interrupt Loan Scheme (CBILS) are new to the platform, the British managing director announced.
Lisa Jacobs (pictured) also said the CBILS peer-to-peer lending platform has already lent more than £ 800 million to UK businesses.
Earlier in the year, Jacobs said it was “a bit of a roller coaster ride,” but Funding Circle has grown to become the fifth largest CBILS lender, largely thanks to a number of new borrowers.
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“We had around two-thirds of the companies new to Funding Circle during this period, and many of them were altogether new to online lending,” she said at the LendIt Fintech Europe 2020 virtual conference.
“Some of the feedback we get from some of these companies is that they applied elsewhere – they may have applied to a bank and received no response, so they looked for alternatives.”
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Jacobs also refused to rule out a return to retail investors in the next year. The platform ceased personal lending in March 2020 to focus on delivering government-backed lending programs.
“We believe that smaller investors have access to the same attractive returns as institutions,” said Jacobs.
“When we start thinking about the next year, we’ll make sure we think about what the retail offer might look like then.”
Jacobs admitted that many retail investors were disappointed with Funding Circle that they were unable to continue lending, but added that overall they were “very understanding”.
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