LENDY has expanded its broker network with two new partners that will focus on marketing its recently-launched bond product.

The peer-to-peer lending platform has teamed up with OFF3R and Welltrado to boost the soft launch of its property bond, which marked its first foray into the fixed income space in April, as reported exclusively by Peer2Peer Finance News.

“We are focusing on our core business so we thought it would be good to assign the marketing of this product to specialists who can select the right audience,” said Paul Riddell, head of marketing and communications at Lendy.

“The bond was designed for people who don’t want to engage in active trading. It will offer them higher returns than the broad average rates of both the equity and bond space.”

OFF3R, an online alternative finance broker which recently launched a separate P2P index, lists products across different categories of bonds, equity crowdfunding, innovative finance ISAs, P2P loans, direct property investment and investment management products.

Within the bond section, Lendy competes mostly with broader alternative finance providers, with ArchOver representing the only other P2P platform offering a bond on OFF3R’s website.

The latter offers retail investors five per cent on a three-year term, which compares with six per cent on Lendy’s bonds of the same maturity and five per cent on Lendy’s one-year notes.

Read more: UK P2P platforms lent £2.6bn over the last year, new index reveals

The new product collaborations come as the platform announced on Wednesday that it will be the new title sponsor of Cowes Week for the next three years, beginning with this year’s regatta which starts on 29 July 2017.

“We at Lendy are extremely proud to announce our title sponsorship of one of the world’s premier sailing regattas, now reborn as Lendy Cowes Week,” said the firm’s co-founder and director Liam Brooke.

“As part of an initial three-year partnership will help strengthen the regatta’s already powerful reputation globally.

“Having started life in 2012 financing quality marine craft and being based on the South Coast, a strategic alignment with Cowes Week felt like the perfect brand fit,” added Riddell.

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