According to a recent report RainFin, a Peer to Peer lender owned in part by Barclays, is broadening its reach to include small business loans. The P2P lender is following a similar path to Lending Club, the large US based P2P lender that just announced their much anticipated IPO. Business borrowers may now approach lenders for up to R 250,000 on a term of 24 months. Annual
interest rates were said to be from 1o% to 32%. In a quote on MoneyWeb, CEO and founder Sean Emery stated;
“We have two years of history now, but volume ramps up as you have performance data,” he said. “We’re in the equity phase. When you get a rating, that’s the trigger point for massive acceleration.”
The report continues to state that about 5% of loans on the RainFin platform have defaulted.
RainFin has a large investor backing the small company. Barclays South Africa owns 49% of the company and are apparently interested in owning the platform. Stephen van Coller from Barclays said in a phone interview. “We’d love to own the platform”.