ThinCats boosts client money management processes

THINCATS has partnered with a software developer to improve its management of client money, amid regulatory scrutiny of the peer-to-peer finance sector.

The Midlands-headquartered P2P finance platform, which originates secured business loans, is now using Watson Wheatley Financial Systems (WWFS)’ iRecs reconciliation solution to improve its operational control processes. This is the first time that the iRecs platform has been used by a P2P lender, according to WWFS.

“iRecs has become integral to our day-to-day operations and reporting of client money,” said Guy Whitaker, client money operations manager at ThinCats. “As ThinCats continues to grow, the automation that iRecs provides ensures we have the capability to deal with significant increases in volumes, protect our clients’ money appropriately and meet our Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) CASS regulatory obligations.”

Malcolm Caley, marketing manager at ThinCats, told Peer-to-Peer Finance News that the deal was part of the platform’s “ongoing improvement of its systems” and highlighted the fact that the wider P2P sector is under review by the FCA. The City watchdog has undertaken a full post-implementation review of the sector and regulatory framework this year, to identify if any changes are required.  

However, Caley emphasised that the FCA’s increased scrutiny of P2P in no way triggered the agreement and said it was just part of ThinCats’ “responsible attitude towards managing client money”.

Tom Wheatley, chief operating officer at WWFS, said: “Our flexible data aggregation and reconciliation tool as well as the hosted offering made the iRecs platform an attractive proposition for the ThinCats team.

“We see P2P lending as a new source of business and we look forward to configuring iRecs to meet and exceed both reconciliation and regulatory requirements.”

Read more: ThinCats widens sources of new loans

Read more: ThinCats’ Kevin Caley explains why P2P must remain true to its roots