Lendy, Europe’s leading peer to peer secured lending platform, and title sponsor of Lendy Cowes Week has won the Lendy Finance Challenge- the five day race for financial institutions at Cowes.

Lendy says that nine boats competed in the challenge, which was open to any company within the finance industry. Runners up in the challenge included big four accountancy firm, Deloitte with two teams; Deloitte Green and Deloitte Black, and the Collinson Group, a global leader in shaping and influencing customer behaviour.

Now in its third year the Finance Challenge, now sponsored by Lendy, was created to encourage financial institutions to race against each other within the regatta. Each team used an identical Sunsail First 40 Match yacht, and took part in four races throughout the week.

The Lendy team won with 13 points, Deloitte with 21 and Cazenove with 28 coming in second and third place respectively.

The teams included a mix of staff from the financial institutions and professional crew, creating an opportunity for competitors to network with other participating financial institutions when not out on the water.

Paul Riddell, Head of Marketing and Communications at Lendy, comments: “This is our first year as title sponsor of Lendy Cowes Week and it has been an incredible week both on and off the water. To have won the Lendy Finance Challenge is an added bonus!

“We never expected the Finance Challenge to be so popular, but we’ve had some great feedback from everyone that competed in the challenge.

“We were even able to invite some guests along with us to take part in some of the events, which meant we had a whole variety of sailing experience on board. It was great to see how everyone bonded and helped each other whilst on the yacht.

“However, it wasn’t all fun and games, we faced some tough conditions, from tacking every three minutes, being thrown around the boat, losing a spinnaker, and we’ve even broken a few things!

“We’re already looking forward to defending our title next year.”