Assetz Capital to accelerate withdrawals in the coming months
Assetz Capital said that the platform can now consider accelerating withdrawals from its access accounts in the coming months.
In a panel Q&A for investors, the management team said that they had seen the substantial drawdowns already paid from the access accounts and also the growth in the cash balances of the access accounts at present.
Martin Heelam, director of investor relationships at Assetz Capital, said this means that all future tranche funding required should be covered by the current cash balances.
He added the peer-to-peer lending platform expects to see that forecast to be proven over the coming months.
Read more: Assetz Capital ‘working hard on new initiatives’ to boost liquidity
“This means that we can now consider accelerating withdrawals in the coming months,” Heelam said in the Q&A.
“Also, whilst we do agree that investors in the access accounts are not invested in perpetuity, we must stress that these accounts are not in ‘run off’ and are very much intended to recommence lending and continue as normal in the future and we have to consider the majority of investors who wish to remain invested.
“Therefore, as things continue to normalise, the prospect of new lending can be reconsidered, which is highly desirable for the health of the access accounts and also contributions to their provision funds on an ongoing basis.
“This is important in order to keep the loanbook fresh, maintain or improve diversification and ensure we are not in any kind of run off situation.
“In the meantime, we have introduced the access account marketplace which allows investors to apply a discount to their loan holdings to potentially speed up the withdrawal of their capital based on their personal liquidity needs.”
Furthermore, Heelan said he is leading a project to explore ways of reinvigorating new loan flow into the manual lending account and looking at alternative ways in which investors can support the drawdown of new loans.
Read more: Assetz hopes to resume lending in access accounts by end of 2020
“We appreciate that many of our manual lending account investors are looking for new loans to invest in,” Heelam said in the Q&A.
“Retail investment continues to be a core part of our platform and we endeavour to ensure that where there is demand for new loans, there will be supply.”
Assetz Capital chief executive Stuart Law said that the platform is continuing to review the 0.9 per cent annual lender fee and working to restart retail lending as soon as possible.
Returning to new retail lending will generate the income needed to facilitate the removal of the lender fee, Law added.
Read more: Assetz Capital sifting through £300m CBILS pipeline
“The reduction and removal of the fee is very much something we are actively working towards as we look to restart new retail lending,” he said in the Q&A.
“We continue to review the situation actively and will communicate any updates as and when we have them.”
