Interview with Charles Egly, CEO of Pret d’Union

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What is Pret d’Union about?

PRÊT D’UNION is the first and sole peer-to-peer lending platform accredited by the French Central Bank.

Thanks to an innovative disintermediation model, PRÊT D’UNION enables private individuals and institutional investors to lend money to borrowers directly through a secured bond marketplace, offering above-market returns on savings and low interest rates on consumer loans. Each party gets a better deal, bypassing mainstream financial institutions.

PRÊT D’UNION was founded in October 2009. In March 2011 the company obtained a broker license from the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers – SEC equivalent); in July 2011 the company obtained a credit institution license from the French Central Bank. The marketing campaign has been launched in January 2012.

In 26 months the company has issued over €80 million in loans (€11 million in 2012, €43 million in 2013). For 2014, Pret d’Union plans to issue over €90 million in new loans.

Since its inception, PRÊT D’UNION has raised €18 million in equity. PRÊT D’UNION also enjoys the benefits of the French Research Tax Credit (CIR).

What are the three main advantages for lenders?

Pret d’Union propose 4 types of investment products:

- Fund #1 (Conservateur Court – Conservative & short duration) which invests in consumer credit with initial maturities of 2 years and 3 years granted to A Borrowers.

- Fund #2 (Conservateur Long – Conservative & long duration) which invests in consumer credit with initial maturities of 4 years and 5 years granted to A Borrowers.

- Fund #3 (Equilibré Court – Balanced & short duration) which invests in consumer credit with initial maturities of 2 years and 3 years granted to B Borrowers.

- Fund #4 (Equilibré Long – Balanced & long duration) which invests in consumer credit with initial maturities of 4 years and 5 years granted to B Borrowers.

The format of our funds is pretty similar to LC Advisors’ funds. However we added a few features: an ISIN code (FR0011605690 for Fund #2) and weekly quotes on Bloomberg (ticker PDUALNG:FP).

Yields for Lenders range from 4.4% p.a. to 7.4% p.a.


Chart 1: Purpose of loans (PU Conservateur Court)

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

For Borrowers, the three main advantages are:

- better rates,

- fixed interest rates and constant monthly repayments (no revolving loans),

- A quicker process.

Which marketing channels do you use to attract lenders and borrowers? Can you share the current CPA?

To attract borrowers we mainly use: emailing, aggregators, banners, affiliates … (CPA below 200€ per borrower).

To attract Lenders, it’s mainly “word of mouth” and PR. Continue reading →

P2P lending service Bondora is now authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority

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Bondora is now authorised and regulated by the UK based Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA supervised peer-to-peer lending license is the only regime available anywhere in Europe that subjects peer lenders under regulatory oversight, supervising peer lending companies. Bondora is one of the selected few peer lenders who is now operating under a license and probably the first non-UK p2p lending company licensed by FCA.

“The authorisation and regulation are good news for our customers across Europe,” commented the CEO of Bondora, Pärtel Tomberg and added that customers will greatly benefit from the supervision of the FCA as well as the additional requirements Bondora needs to comply with in order to maintain the authorisation. “We are likely the only peer lender outside of UK who obtained this authorisation and this type of regulation is something that we have been looking forward for a number of years,” added Tomberg.

The interim licence increases the strength of the company by making sure that Bondora complies with the rules set by the regulator. These regulations will ensure that Bondora and other regulated peer to peer lenders provide a more secure, transparent and sustainable service to its customers. These provisions include among others conduct of business rules (in particular, around disclosure and promotions), minimum capital requirements, client money protection rules, dispute resolution rules and a requirement for Bondora to take reasonable steps to ensure existing loans continue to be administered if the firm goes out of business. Bondora already complies with most of the regulations however there is a transitional period during which all processes need to be made compliant with the standards required.

Until now Bondora, as well as most other peer lenders, operated without a specific license and regulation since a suitable regulatory regime did simply not exist. The UK based Financial Conduct Authority started issuing specific peer licences from April 2014.

Bondora is the meeting place that unites investors and borrowers from all corners of the world. Bondora provides easy access to two mutually beneficial solutions: borrowers find the best available financing with affordable monthly payments, while investors generate profit on loan interest. The company serves more than 90 000 Customers from 29 different countries and has issued over 16 million EUR in loans and its users have earned more than 1.6 million EUR in interest income. Continue reading →

P2P Lender Lending Club Announces Partnership with Union Bank

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Renauld Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, announced today that Lending Club and Union Bank will partner to develop and offer products to  the 1 million customers of Union Bank. Lending Club has partnered with several smaller banks in the 12 to 18 months. Laplanche sees great potential for more of the 6,000 banks in the US to partner with the p2p lending industry and profit from leaner processes the new players offer.


Source: Lending Club


Renauld Laplanche speaking at LendIt 2014

Asked whether Lending Club has plans to go international he says the focus is on the US. But the time may come for international expansion but that is at least 2-3 years of.

Prosper Raises 70M

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Prosper raises a 70 million US$ funding round led by Francisco Partners. The additional funding will be used for growth and expansion plans. David Golob from Francisco Partners, global private equity firm which focuses on information technology, will join the Prosper Marketplace Board of Directors. The funding round also includes investments from Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms, as well as Phenomen Ventures. Continue reading →

International P2P Lending Services – Loan Volumes April 2014

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Prosper had a very good April. In UK especially the platforms for property secured lending grew their volume compared to last month. I added two new services to the table. I do monitor development of p2p lending figures for many markets. Since I already have most of the data on file I can publish statistics on the monthly loan originations for selected p2p lending services.

Table: P2P Lending Volumes in April 2014. Source: own research
Note that volumes have been converted from local currency to Euro for the sake of comparison. Some figures are estimates/approximations.

Notice to p2p lending services not listed:
If you want to be included in this chart in future, please email the following figures on the first working day of a month: total loan volume originated since inception, loan volume originated in previous month, number of loans originated in previous month, average nominal interest rate of loans originated in previous month.

How You Can Invest in Equity of a New UK P2P Lending Startup – Provided You Act Quickly

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In December 2013 I saw the pitch of a promising pre-launch UK p2p lending startup called Landbay pitching on the UK p2p equity platform Seedrs to the crowd. The pitch explained how they planned to do p2p lending secured by property in the UK. I liked the proposal and invested a small amount in Landbay shares.

Since then the founders John Goodall and Gray Stern have been busy. They launched the site in public beta, succeeded in winning former Zopa co-founder James Alexander for their advisory board and managed to get featured on Techcrunch.

They also kept investors updated about their progress. A few days ago I got a 21 page report about the current state and future plans.

Now Landbay is raising a second round from the crowd

Landbay raised capital in a few hours on the weekend in a second SEIS eligible round on Seedrs from the existing shareholders. Landbay raised 81,647 GBP for a 6% equity stake. That’s a valuation of 1.28M GBP (up from 0.62M GBP in first round). To avoid dilution investors from the first round had the right to invest into this new round first.

Now there is a 2.96% equity round – EIS eligible – aiming to raise 41,456 GBP (1.36M valuation).

If you are interested you don’t need to be a UK resident. Just sign up at Seedrs and follow the process. If you are outside of the UK, I recommend using Transferwise, when depositing money in order to reduce currency transfer fees significantly. I think this round will close within days, maybe even hours, so if you are interested you need to be quick.

This article is not an investment advice. Investing in startups bears significant risks, including total loss of investment.