Plenti increases provision fund buffer

Plenti has increased the amount in its provision fund to cover losses from its peer-to-peer loans.

A quarterly update from the Australian P2P lender shows its provision fund buffer increased to AUS$18.82m (£9.8m) as of the end of September, up from AUS$17.6m in June.

Its coverage ratio has also increased from 137 per cent to 157 per cent of expected credit losses.

The platform said in August that it has seen a “significant decline” in the number of Plenti borrowers in hardship and only 1.48 per cent of loans are under payment breaks.

Read more: RateSetter Australia rebrands

Plenti commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange after completing its AUS$55m (£30m) initial public offering (IPO) last month.

The listing, supported by institutional and retail investors, gives the peer-to-peer lender a market capitalisation of AUS$280m.

It is currently trading at 1.22p per share.

UK P2P lender RateSetter had a 14.1 per cent stake in the Australian platform, which previously used the RateSetter brand.

The Plenti prospectus showed that RateSetter transferred its 18 million shares to a company called RMML Nominee as part of the UK platform’s sale to Metro Bank which does not involve the Australian business.

All 18 million shares will now be distributed to RateSetter’s UK shareholders.