eMoneyHub expects to have reached profitability

JustUs’ parent company eMoneyHub expects to have reached profitability for the first time in 2020.

eMoneyHub, which owns P2P lending platform JustUs and personal finance comparison site Moneybrain, has provisionally reported a small operational profit for the year to December 2020.

Lee Birkett (pictured), founder of eMoneyHub, put this projected first year of profit during Covid-19, down to strong financial management and robust well performing property deals.

“We doubled our lending last year, the actual company grew, we had more loans,” he said.

“The majority of it is existing investors. It came as a pleasant surprise and we look forward to continued growth in 2021.

“Our platform has a compound growth model, once people put their money on the platform, they don’t tend to withdraw it, it grows and is sticky.

“We have skin in the game and are all about the long-term profitability of the loan, we’re focused on operating on a net interest margin model, similar to a bank, making money on the repayments, whereas many P2P platforms work on an upfront fee model.”

The projected profitability is despite six months during the Covid-19 crisis in which JustUs was not lending.

In September, JustUs started listing new loans again and accepting investments, after pausing in March due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Then in December, the platform achieved a record month of lending over £1m in new loans.

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“During the pandemic when we weren’t lending, we still got business from refinancing and serving existing customers,” said Birkett.

“Once a developer finishes a project, they start on a new one, it’s good old-fashioned common sense customer service that produces repeat business.”