Media

News and Press Releases

Is an ISA the best home for your nest egg?

25th March 2017

LendingCrowd is mentioned in a piece from the Guardian about ISAs and how to make the most of the potential benefits.

Read the article here.

‘No evidence’ of peer-to-peer investors underestimating risk, says P2PFA

1st September 2016

LendingCrowd is featured in a piece from Bridging and Commercial on the risks associated with peer-to-peer lending.

You can read the article here.

LendingCrowd records post-Brexit boost

4th August 2016

LendingCrowd has recorded a steep increase in deal activity during July, as reported in this article from BQ Live, which you can read here.

Stuart Lunn: The developing market for SME finance - The Scotsman

21st July 2016

LendingCrowd CEO Stuart Lunn’s comment piece on the SME finance market and Brexit appeared in yesterday’s online version of the Scotsman – you can read it here.

Ringing in the Changes - The Scotsman

10th December 2015

Businesses are being more inventive in the way they are sourcing funding. Craig Johnson investigates the changing funding landscape in Scotland.

Please find the article about LendingCrowd here.

The LendingCrowd app has launched!

30th November 2015

We are very excited to announce the launch of the LendingCrowd app, a new and exciting way to invest in growing UK SMEs.

The app is the first of its kind to allow new investors to sign up and load money onto the platform, as well as keeping investors up to date with their current investments and allowing them to bid on new loans.

The app is currently available for iOS (download it for free here) and work on an Android app will begin in the near future.

Autumn Statement - News for crowdfunding and the IFISA

25th November

The Chancellor George Osborne has announced in the Autumn Statement that debt securities (bonds and mini-bonds) offered via crowdfunding platforms will be included in the list of products eligible for the new Innovative Finance ISA. This ISA was announced in the Summer Budget in July when it was initially said that it would include peer-to-peer investments from 6th April 2016, allowing people to receive tax-free returns on these investments.

Debt securities will be included in the IFISA from Autumn 2016, however for now equity crowdfunding remains outside of the list of ISA products and the possibility of including it will continue to be explored.

Bank of England: Interest rates to remain low for some time

24th November 2015

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, has said while speaking to MPs on the Treasury Committee that UK interest rates are likely to stay low “for some time”.

UK interest rates have been set at 0.5% since 2009, and while Carney does not believe that there is a case for negative interest rates he said that “even with limited and gradual rate increases it still will be a relatively low interest rate environment”.

No date for an interest rate rise has been given, although it is expected that it will be mid-2016 at the earliest.

LendingCrowd supports £1.5 million Diet Chef deal

3rd November 2015

LendingCrowd is excited to announce that we have supported the management buyout of Diet Chef, the largest and most successful diet food home delivery company in the UK. Diet Chef, which was launched from a garage in 2008, has grown to £15 million turnover with 150,000 customers.

The £1.5 million Diet Chef deal is one of the largest peer-to-business loans funded in the UK, reinforcing LendingCrowd as a credible alternative to traditional funding sources. Since launching in October 2014, LendingCrowd has loaned in excess of £3.7million to 35 UK SMEs.

Read more about the Diet Chef loan from The Scotsman, The Herald, Daily Record, Daily Business Group, City A.M., Business Quarter, ScotBuzz and Startups.co.uk.

LendingCrowd wins Herald Digital Business Award!

23rd October 2015

The LendingCrowd team attended the Herald Digital Business Awards last night, and we are very proud to say that LendingCrowd won the Business to Business Award for supporting Scotland’s SMEs!

This award means a lot to us and we look forward to helping many more businesses to secure funding they need to grow.

We would also like to say congratulations to the other winners: Digital Six (E-commerce Award), Spider Online (Public Sector Award), Euan’s Guide (Charity and Social Enterprise Award), The Lane Agency (Consumer Engagement Award), Equator (Best Use of Social Media Award), University of Strathclyde – Chris Hughes (Student Award), Andrew Duncan – Swarm Online (Digital Professional of the Year Award), Ecom Scotland and RNIB (Education and Training Award), Storm ID (Digital Agency Award) and ScreenMedia (Best Mobile App).

Read the Herald’s coverage of the event here.

Borrowers in the news

21st October 2015

At LendingCrowd we love to see small business success, so we are very pleased that two of our borrowers have been in the news this month.

We Care for Children raised £35,000 with LendingCrowd and have successfully opened a new Little Flyer’s nursery this month, adding to their portfolio of six nurseries in Edinburgh and West Lothian.

Read more about We Care for Children’s new venture and experience with crowdlending in The Scotsman, Daily Business and Edinburgh Evening News.

Poddle Pod has also seen its expansion plans come to fruition after securing a £30,000 loan. The business has increased production of its Poddle Pod product by outsourcing production to Turkey, has begun selling to major high-street retailers and has developed a product to be sold to the NHS.

Read more about Poddle Pod’s expansion success: Midlands Business News and Business Quarter Live.

We're celebrating our first birthday this week

30th September 2015

We’re really happy to say that we have reached our first birthday. It’s been an amazing journey and we look forward to celebrating many more. To date we have facilitated £1.75m of loans to 28 SMEs and grown to over 1100 investors.

Thanks for the best wishes ScotBuzz

An interesting article about the background and first year of LendingCrowd – thanks BQ

Thanks to The Herald – an article about our successful first year

Thanks for the support The Scotsman – LendingCrowd’s success and future plans

Peer-to-peer lender float set to raise £150m

25th September 2015

Funding Circle, the fast-growing peer-to-peer lender, is planning to float an investment trust to raise £150 million for credit-hungry small businesses.

The vehicle will provide money to small companies in Britain and the United States through Funding Circle’s online debt marketplace.

New Isa means tax-free interest from peer-to-peer investments fuelling the lend-to-save boom

15th July 2015

A new type of Isa will be brought in next year allowing peer-to-peer investors to earn interest tax-free.

The Innovative Finance Isa will cover investments made through websites where savers lend their cash to other individuals. Read more.

The internet revolution that is changing our patterns of consumption

23rd August 2015

Technology is making it easier than ever before for people to rent goods to consumers, but does the new ‘sharing economy’ herald a new economic dawn or is it just business as usual, asks Mark Latham. Read more

How more firms are opting for crowdfunding route

9th June 2015

While many of the businesses which looked to raise money through crowdfunding in the early days would no doubt fail a grilling in the Dragons’ Den, the latest Scottish companies to announce offers have highlighted the changing face of the sector. Read more.

17 firms joining Alternative Business Funding group

28th June 2015

ABF has lobbied for the new banking referral legislation – which is set to force high street banks to refer any business declined a loan to alternative lenders – and claims the legislation could pump £2 billion in business lending into the economy a year. Read more.

Crowd Funding: increasingly important alternative for small businesses

15th March 2015

The crowd-funding sector has provided much-needed competition to the banking sector and opened up new funding routes for businesses, particularly those small to medium-sized enterprises that have found it hard to obtain loans and raise equity in recent years since the financial crisis. Read more.