Proplend breaks £100m lending milestone amid borrowing spike

By Robin Amlot

UK P2P lending platform Proplend has broken through the £100 million lending milestone across the platform, returned over £47m of capital and paid £10m of interest to its lender base.

Proplend Limited is a fully FCA authorised peer to peer lending platform specialising in sub £5m, secured commercial property loans and connects cash-rich, income-poor investors (lenders) directly to creditworthy commercial property investors (borrowers).

Proplend’s Founder and CEO Brian Bartaby said: “With fewer and fewer banks lending into this sector, we have seen an increasing level of loan enquiries from borrowers over the past few months. This is being matched with demand for income from investors who are concerned about volatility in the stock market, dividends being suspended or cancelled altogether and the long-term low interest rate environment.”

Bartaby described the Proplend platform as a repurpose of a long term well-established institutional asset class of Commercial Real Estate Loan Syndication. “Proplend has just reduced the size of the loans and increased the number of participants in each loan by lowering the barrier to entry. Rather than 3 lenders syndicating a £100m loan, we have 300 lenders syndicating a £1m loan. Our lenders gain access to this institutional style of income stream from as little as £1,000,” he said.

Proplend is a pioneer of the peer-to-peer loan tranche model in the UK, whereby loans are split into up to three loan to value (LTV) based risk tranches. Tranche A 0-50% LTV, Tranche B 51-65% LTV and Tranche C 66-75% LTV. This offers investors with differing risk appetites and return requirements the ability to all participate in the same transaction – more easily identifying investments with risk-reward levels they feel comfortable with.

The platform services two different spheres of clients:

• Commercial Property Investors (Borrowers) – Investors either purchasing or refinancing income-producing commercial investment property who are looking to borrow between £250,000 to £5,000,000 for up to 5 years on an interest only basis.
• Investors (Lenders) – Individuals lending personally or via their ISA, SIPP or SSAS and corporate Lenders. Each looking to earn attractive rates of risk-adjusted returns of between 5%-12% per annum with a minimum investment of £1,000.