Lendy, one of Europe’s largest peer-to-peer secured lending platforms, has repaid five loans in full in February to investors using the platform.

The loans repaid in February were at an average interest rate of 8% per annum.

Repayments of loans to investors included:

• £2.3m secured against a luxury apartment in Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea
• Over £206,000 secured against a residential property in Wales

Other loans repaid during the period were being used to fund residential property developments.

Liam Brooke, director and co-founder of Lendy, says: “Recovery is just as critical as origination in the property loan market, which is why we place so much importance on it. After all, our number one priority is to protect our investors’ hard-earned capital.

“To underline this commitment, we’re continuing to invest in attracting great talent, improving further our due diligence process and always ensuring our property valuations are undertaken by RICS-registered valuers. This provides the assurance that the valuations are both professional and independent.

“However, unavoidably, sometimes property valuations are wrong. It is for this reason that we do not present loans above 70% LTV, with the average in 2017 being 44%.

“Of course, all investing carries an element of risk, and P2P lending is no different. But the case we would make is that the high interest rates we achieve on behalf of investors should more than compensate for a valuation being wrong, particularly for those investors who manage a diversified portfolio, as we always recommend.

“Investors need to be prepared for losses from time to time, but our conservative approach on LTVs means any losses that do occur in a diversified portfolio will be typically covered by the sale of asset that the loan is secured on.”