FundingKnight has partnered up with Alternative Bridging Corporation (ABC) in order to provide short-term first and second charge loans for its users. Those loans will range from £100,000 to £500,000 in size. The partnership will allow the FundingKnight platform to take advantage of ABC’s unique depth of knowledge and experience within the property finance space. ABC will layer its ability of assess, secure and manage bridging loans from drawdown to repayment on top of the standard Funding Knight platform.
Graeme Marshall, Managing Director of Funding Knight, commented:
“This is a wonderful opportunity to offer our introducers a wider product range and for our lenders to enter the secured loan market benefitting from tested, experienced management from day one.”
The new strata of loans will be secured on either retail, industrial, commercial and residential property for up to 70% LTV. The terms on offer are 3 months to 2 years and crucially can be repaid by the borrower at any time without penalty. Of course, FundingKnight’s bread-and-butter brand of unsecured SME lending for up to £250k will continue to function alongside the secured offering.
Brian Rubins, Managing Director of Alternative Bridging, also weighed in:
“Graeme has been known to us for some years and we look forward to extending this relationship to the FundingKnight network of introducers and lenders. We are both convinced this wider product range will benefit both companies and the business community at the same time.”
The arrival of secured loans is a sensible step for FundingKnight to have undertaken. It broadens the options on offer to lenders and thus allows those lenders to achieve a greater level of intra-platform diversification. But the greater motivation for this initiative is probably to enter into the fastest-growing subsector of the UK peer-to-peer scene – property lending.
