accounting

Loanbook partners with Sage

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Spanish p2p lending marketplace LoanBook announces a new partnership with Sage, provider of cloud accounting, payroll and payments software, to offer Sage’s Spanish customers a direct, in-product channel to alternative finance.

As part of the collaboration, Sage will offer its SME and accountancy customers access to LoanBook’s working capital loans, both in-product and within Sage’s wider ecosystem, stating Sage’s customers will benefit from a dedicated loan request portal enabling LoanBook to access customer data in order to improve the quality and speed of its loan underwriting.

Sage already has partnerships with other p2p lending marketplaces like Funding Circle and Marketinvoice.

James Buckland, CEO of LoanBook, commented: ‘We are excited to go a step further in our collaboration with Sage with a direct in-product integration. This partnership is based on the shared vision and commitment of Sage and LoanBook to support the SME community in Spain in becoming more competitive through improved access to finance and to innovative technology solutions.’

LoanBook has lent 21 million Euro to Spanish SMEs during the last 12 months and says it if providing a net annual return of over 5% for its investors.

Sage Partners with Funding Circle and MarketInvoice

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Sage, the business software and services provider, announced two partnerships that will help SMEs unlock the UK’s growing alternative finance industry, which was worth 1.74 billion GBP in 2014.

Integrating with one of Europe’s peer-to-peer business lenders for short term finance, MarketInvoice, Sage’s flagship small business accounting package – Sage 50 Accounts – now enables small businesses across the UK and Ireland to apply for business-critical funds more quickly and easily than ever before.

Working with Funding Circle, an marketplace for business loans, Sage aims to help even more businesses across the country understand how they can borrow all important growth capital between 5,000 GBP and 1 million GBP (and up to 3 million GBP for property finance) in days not months.

‘Sage has been at the forefront of payment and funding innovation for years, and alternative finance is no exception,’ said Lee Perkins, EVP and UKI Managing Director for Sage Group plc. ‘Sage Pay already provides a key piece of the business growth puzzle, and when it comes to small business accounting, Sage 50 Accounts offers the deepest and broadest hybrid accounting capabilities on the market. By partnering with MarketInvoice and Funding Circle, we’re giving Small & Medium Businesses in the UK the ability to swiftly and easily apply for additional funding to support their business development and growth.”

Lack of finance remains a critical issue for UK companies, with almost 40 per cent stating it holds them back from growing, according to UK Bond Network. Whether they need to invest in stock, new premises, product development, or even cover day-to-day costs, alternative finance can provide faster, more convenient lending than traditional sources. Marketplace lending platforms have provided over 2.1bn GBP  in funds to UK small businesses in recent years.

James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle, said: ‘The Funding Circle marketplace is currently the fifth largest net lender to small businesses in the UK, in just under five years. But there’s still a long way to go – many small business owners remain unaware of the choice they now have when looking for finance. Partnering with Sage will allow us to grow awareness and trust, bringing more competition and efficiency to the small business lending market.’ Continue reading →

MyC4 with accounting troubles

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Since the new release, MyC4.com has encoutered repeated accounting problems, sometimes with wrong interest calculations, sometimes requiring correction of user account balances. 

Examples of incidents: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

MyC4's staff has been quick to respond to the problems and usually is fixing them fast.
But I believe the issue here is, that p2p lending through a foreign internet startup requires a great amount of trust. And while lenders are used to bugs in new internet application, they do expect a high standard when it comes to accounting. After all no user of online banking would accept that he has to check the interest calculations made by the bank. 

The MyC4 team did a good job developing the platform so far and earned at lot of trust; but if the problems persists this might be an obstacle to further growth.