Among this overall total is over £14 million currently on loan, spread across more than 3,000 active loans.
Around £150,000 is lent every day through the platform, and Lending Works predicts a to rise to £250,000 by December 2016.
Nick Harding, founding CEO of Lending Works, commented:
“It is immensely rewarding to reflect on the tremendous strides we’ve made as a company in such a short period. To go from start-up to the UK’s #3 P2P lender, lending over £150,000 a day and approaching £20 million in loans exceeds even our wildest expectations when we launched.
“We’ve come a long way from the late nights in that tiny office in Farringdon, where it all started. To accommodate our ever-growing team, we upgraded to our new offices in August.
“One of our big motivations was to make the world of financial services a better place by delivering an innovative service that genuinely puts the customer first. In two years this hasn’t wavered, and we’ll keep investing in both our staff and our products to ensure that we continue to raise the bar in terms of service, quality and security.”
Lending Works also met the deadline for application for full FCA authorisation which was a requirement for all P2P lenders to achieve by 31 October 2015.
The platform also expects 'exponential growth' following the launch of the new Innovative Finance ISA in April this year, for which P2P loans will be eligible.
Harding continued:
“As a relatively new industry, we’ve always been strong advocates of regulation. With our application for full permissions having long been submitted, we embrace the prospect of being held to account to the highest possible standards set out by the FCA and welcome any measures which enhance our reputation and that of our industry.
“But it is the arrival of IFISA which excites us most. The news at the Summer Budget that we would be separated from the existing Stocks & Shares wrapper was hugely significant. It’s something we had lobbied for, and while we’re thrilled to offer our lenders the considerable tax benefits of the new IFISA, we are just as pleased that we will now be in a position to clearly communicate the risks and rewards of holding P2P loans within ISAs to them.
“We believe we have got to where we are by putting the customer first, and that will never change, regardless of how quickly we grow. We’re an ambitious platform, and IFISA, along with numerous exciting partnerships and initiatives – such as our recent agreement with Pay4Later - which we have in the pipeline, mean that we’re expecting to write more than £50 million in loans over the next year, taking our total to £70m.”
