New industry group ‘will complement not compete with’ trade body
The new peer-to-peer lending group will complement rather than compete with the industry’s existing trade body, one of its founders has said.
Atuksha Poonwassie, a director of the UK Crowdfunding Association (UKCFA), last month helped launch the 36H Group offshoot for its P2P lending members.
It means P2P lending platforms now have a choice between Innovate Finance’s 36H Group launched in 2020 and the new body run by the UKCFA.
Poonwassie said the UKCFA group will give its members more time to discuss P2P lending issues, but said it is willing to, and already does, work alongside the 36H Group.
“Our experience of Innovate Finance’s 36H Group was that you had to be a larger platform to join when it was first set up,” Poonwassie, also a founder of the Simple Crowdfunding, told Peer2Peer Finance News.
“We would welcome Innovate Finance’s 36H Group members and ours are welcome to join both.
“We have wider conversations about crowdfunding and P2P lending in its entirety whereas the Innovate Finance group is more focused on 36H Group activities.
“I would encourage platforms to join both but it will boil down to the minimum requirements in terms of membership.”
Read more: New industry group aims to make P2P sector mainstream
The UKCFA requires firms to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and to be actively operating. Firms must also follow its code of conduct.
Innovate Finance has previously said all P2P lenders are welcome, but it has a small and diminishing membership.
Of its members, only CrowdProperty and Assetz Capital are still operating in the sector after Zopa, Funding Circle, RateSetter and Lending Works exited the P2P market.
Mike Carter head of platform lending at the 36H Group, has previously said the organisation has a future despite member platforms leaving the sector.
Carter has been asked for comment.