Marketplace Business Lending Soars to New Highs - Continental Europe

The Liberum AltFi Volume Index (Continental Europe) narrowly missed out on setting a new origination volume record month.  A slightly subdued performance from the peer to peer consumer lending segment appears to be the reason for the miss. With the segment posting a 8.4% decline in origination volume from September’s high.

Conversely, October was a record month for peer to peer business lending and invoice financing according to the index with a combined €13.2m provided in financing arrangements. The spurt in October’s SME volume origination has largely been contributed by record months achieved by EstateGuru, Lendix and Finexkap that contributed 36% of monthly volume. It comes in the same month that Funding Circle acquired Germany’s Zencap, underlining the growth potential in the business segment.

Taking a step back, the picture is not uniformly rosy. Some platforms in continental Europe are struggling to move up the growth curve. Unilend and Geldvoorelkaar established their respective record months in November and October 2014. Whilst record months are certainly not expected month-on-month for platforms, a year gap is a long way from the near exponential growth we have become accustomed to reporting. Geldvoorelkaar was acquired by Trustbuddy late 2014 and with Trustbuddy having filed for bankruptcy last month, the position of the Dutch peer to peer lender is unclear.