LENDY has grown its loan book from £80m to £322m in the first half of the year, while interest earned by investors has already surpassed the 2016 total.

The peer-to-peer property platform has released its half-year review, showing lenders gained £25m of interest up to the end of June, compared with £15.7m for the whole of 2016.

The number of investors has risen from 12,600 to 16,500 over the past six months, the platform said.
The report also revealed the make-up of Lendy’s user base, with 49.9 per cent of investors under age 40 representing 27.4 per cent of lending.

Investors over age 50 lead the platform’s lending volumes, accounting for 49.1 per cent of loans from 32.4 per cent of members.

Men account for 80.8 per cent of Lendy’s investors, the report said.

The review also set key targets for 2017, including processing loans quicker and gaining full regulatory authorisation.

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The platform said it was continuing to participate in “constructive discussions” with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as part of its application for full authorisation.

“Continuing to make improvements to our due-diligence process, working with the FCA on our full authorisation, and developing new features and processes to improve both the quality and liquidity of the available loans market and our ability to recover loans are also key targets for us in 2017,” the report said.

“We’re also one of the few profitable P2P platforms in the sector.

“For our borrowers, we’re aiming to get even quicker. We’re already able to make initial offers within 24 hours of being contacted by a broker, but we’re aiming to be able to turn offers around in a matter of hours for bridging loans, and in just days for development loans.”

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