RateSetter and Zopa among P2P lenders signed up to money platform Bud
SIX PEER-TO-PEER lenders including RateSetter and Zopa have partnered with Bud, a new online platform and app that enables consumers to manage their finances on a single dashboard.
Zopa, Landbay and Assetz Capital have all got live pages on the platform, meaning that Bud’s customers will be able to manage their P2P loans alongside their bank accounts, pensions, mortgages and other investments.
LendingWell, Lending Works and RateSetter have also signed up to Bud, although their pages have not gone live yet.
“We want to make sure the customer gets as much relevant choice as possible,” Alan Walsh, head of partnerships at Bud, told Peer-to-Peer Finance News. “We’re a new distribution channel for P2P, amongst other financial services sectors.”
Bud currently has 18 partners operational on the site, with another 20 signed up.
Walsh said that Bud is currently in talks with other P2P platforms.
“We’re not just a transactional platform as we use behavioural spend data to suggest relevant products to users,” he said. “We can give the firms feedback on behaviour in order to help them innovate more effectively”.
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Walsh said he expects to see increasing demand from retail investors for P2P, thanks to the Innovative Finance ISA.
“I think because interest rates are so low on traditional ISAs, the more P2P becomes well known, the more people will dip their toe into the water,” he said.
“Our aim is to raise awareness of these types of products.”
Bud was one of the fintech start-ups selected by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for its “regulatory sandbox” – part of the City regulator’s initiative to support fintech innovators. The regulatory sandbox aims to create a ‘safe space’ where start-ups can test out their business models in a live environment without fear of FCA punishment if something goes wrong.
It has been in its ‘beta’ testing phase since November and currently has around 4,000 customers signed up.
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The platform is in talks with a number of strategic partners, whereby their customers would have access to Bud via a link on their website, for example. Partnering with financial services companies, such as wealth managers, will build their base and add significant volume overnight, Walsh said.
Julian Cork, chief operating officer at Landbay, said: “Landbay see the consumer finance industry moving towards a customer-centric modular model where platforms like Bud will enable customers to access the best products to meet their requirements using the emerging API architectures being put in place today.”
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