Quilam Capital, which provides both debt and equity solutions to companies in the speciality finance sector, has announced its fifth deal since it launched late last year. 

BondMason has raised £1.85 million to drive the growth of the business and fulfil the company’s vision to enable more investors to access returns from direct lending.

The direct lending market in the UK is continuing to come-of-age, offering investors the potential to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns with lower volatility compared to equity capital markets. This was marked by another record year of growth for direct lending in 2017.

SIPP providers are likely to review non-standard investments with increasing caution following recent FSCS fines, says BondMason.

Quarterly data covering the period up to the end of March 2018, published today by the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA), reveals that cumulative lending by P2PFA members is fast-approaching £9 billion, with almost 150,000 investors currently providing loans facilitated through P2PFA platforms to more than fifty-thousand businesses and 221,000 consumers.

Leading small business finance provider Liberis has secured £57.5m in combined funding from British Business Investments, Paragon Bank, BCI Finance, and Blenheim Chalcot. This new facility and equity investment will accelerate Liberis’ growth to help support an estimated 100,000 UK jobs by 2020, providing huge social and economic benefit to the UK economy.

Default forecasts across some of the main consumer peer-to-peer lending platforms have begun ticking up.

Specialist property peer-to-peer lender, CrowdProperty is launching its Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA). The tax-free product will be open initially to existing registered lenders who will be able to take advantage of this year’s ISA allowance of up to £20k and transfer existing ISA funds into the CrowdProperty ISA without affecting their allowance. 

The Peer-to-Peer Finance Association has appointed Paul Smee as new independent Chair, succeeding Christine Farnish who is stepping down after a five-year term.

The P2PFA has published data showing that in the period ending in the fourth quarter of 2017, cumulative lending transacted through P2PFA member platforms exceeded £8 billion.