Opportunity for platforms to work more closely with banks

Coronavirus presents an opportunity for peer-to-peer platforms to work more closely with traditional lenders to help small businesses, Blend Network’s boss has claimed.

In August 2018, Blend Network provided a £250,000 facility to County Down Developments for the development of four luxury apartments in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

After rejecting the housebuilder’s application for finance, Barclays, using the government’s bank referral scheme, passed on the case to the P2P lender.

Read more: Blend predicts “healthy deal flow” for 2020

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Blend Network chief executive Yann Murciano has predicted opportunities like this may arise this year too.

“This is an opportunity for P2P to work more closely with traditional lenders to help support all those small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs, including small- and medium-sized property developers, through these challenging times,” he said.

“P2P platforms can help prop up liquidity to these SME players at such challenging times.

“Furthermore, P2P lenders like ourselves have seen more lenders coming in and interested in fixed-return property lending at such volatile times in equity markets.”

Murciano said a recession is inevitable but he is very confident that the Bank of England and the government will support the UK’s recovery.

Read more: Industry reacts: P2P would survive a possible recession