Fellow Finance loanbook approaches €900m
Fellow Finance investors funded of €23.6m (£20m) of loans on the Finnish peer-to-peer lending platform last month, the platform has revealed.
Its cumulative loan volume grew to €884m and the total number of loan investors to 18,841.
It comes as the platform gears up to launch a banking brand next year following its merger with Evli Bank.
The platform’s chief executive Teemu Nyholm said the new bank would be “digital and customer-oriented” with “solid capital adequacy in Finland” to serve both private and small- and medium-sized enterprise customers.
Nyholm said it would broaden the lender’s customer base, cut its funding costs by attracting deposits and improve its profitability.
The platform has also launched into the buy-now-pay-later market with Fellow Lasku, which gives consumers an option to make an online purchase with a 30-day interest-free invoice or in flexible monthly instalments.
Fellow Finance completed a rejig of its management team last month following the departure of its chief financial officer.
Niko Stark left the company in October and finance manager Christina Wallenius has stepped in as an interim replacement. She will also join the management team.
Wallenius only joined Fellow Finance in September from Evli Bank.
The Fellow Finance management team now consists of Wallenius, chief executive Teemu Nyholm, director of investor accounts Antoni Airikkala, director of legal affairs and operations Linda Magnusson, director of consumer lending Juha Saari and director of business financing Miikka Silvonen.