Ablrate shrugs off pandemic with rise in profit

Ablrate has posted its largest full-year profit to date, despite a dip in turnover amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Aviation and Tech Capital, which owns the asset-backed peer-to-peer lender, reported a £93,000 profit for the 12 months to 31 August 2020 – the third year the company has been profitable.

This is double the £46,194 profit reported the previous year.

However, turnover fell from £1.6m to £1.3m year-on-year, which chief executive David Bradley-Ward said “is to be expected in the pandemic”.

Bradley-Ward said that Ablrate benefitted from increased margins last year, so gross profit was only slightly down, resulting in the £93,000 profit.

“This year has started well with our last £1m of loans cumulatively filling in less than a couple of hours so we feel we are moving forward,” said Bradley-Ward. “Even with the effects of Covid we are on target to increase turnover from last year. Our underwriter program is also starting in earnest shortly and that should boost origination.”

Read more: Ablrate not interested in recovery loan scheme because of busy pipeline

Ablrate has originated £58m in loans since it launched in 2014, with £49m traded on its secondary market.

The company says that it operates a long tail model, where it is paid a monthly monitoring fee by borrowers alongside administration fees, resulting in a more stable level of income.

Bradley-Ward has separately launched a blockchain-powered platform for trading private debt called ASMX, which is now used by a number of P2P platforms.

Ablrate launched the ASMX technology on its platform for its new secondary market last October and now reports it has traded £5m.

“ASMX is an important part of our growth plans this year,” Bradley-Ward said.

“Our data shows that liquidity has increased, it has been a big factor for underwriters to come on board and for lenders the spread of prices has become tighter giving better prices.

“Covid showed that liquidity was one of the most important things that was needed for lenders and we feel we delivered that with the technology we had, but ASMX is a different level which opens up so many different options for Ablrate and those other platforms that use it.”