LendingCrowd continues suspension of secondary market
LendingCrowd has confirmed that its secondary loan market will remain closed to lenders for the time being, eight months after suspending it due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The peer-to-peer business lending platform stopped trading on its secondary market in January, citing economic conditions and a low number of loans on the platform.
It said in May it remained closed and has now confirmed again that individual lenders are still unable to buy or sell loan parts.
LendingCrowd said that it continues to review macro-economic data, which shows that conditions still remain stressed for British small- and medium-sized enterprises as they face regional and sector differences and challenges.
“We have decided that our loan market will remain closed to lenders for the time being,” LendingCrowd said in a blog on its website.
“We know that some of our lenders are eager for a return to the buying and selling of loan parts again, but we feel it is still very early in the pandemic recovery.
“We will of course continue to monitor this situation and update you on the status of our loan market as we start to see a return to normal market conditions.”
LendingCrowd has been closed to new retail deposits and registrations since last December, as it has focused on deploying institutional funds through the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme.
It said that it will update investors when it is likely to resume offering loans that individual lenders are permitted to fund.
The platform also said that the one per cent withdrawal fee on its growth account, growth ISA, income account and income ISA remains in place because it relates directly to services incurred by lenders from the collection and allocation of borrower repayments.
It said the fee is only paid when a withdrawal is made, not when a loan is sold.
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