Comunitae is the largest Spanish P2B lender and has financed €21.2 million to date, with year on year growth of 128.4%, according to the Liberum AltFi Europe Volume Index (LAVICE). Investment is open to anyone over the age of 18 who has a bank account inside the EU. Investments must be at least €50. Investments can be made two ways: either investors select which loans they want to fund or they allow the system to automatically select loans that match their criteria.
Loan Book Capital is a P2B lender and has authorised €4.5 million loans to date, with year on year growth at 133.9% (LAVICE). Investment is open to accredited and non-accredited investors (subject to regulation). Investors choose which loans they want to invest in.
Equity Crowdfunding:
Crowdcube was launched in June 2014 and funnelled €1.24M in the first half of 2015. Investors can choose the companies they want to invest in and there is no minimum investment. In February,
The Spanish market is, in terms of rank, one of the largest European Alternative finance markets: ranking 8th (4th largest GDP). However it is very much in its infancy. The sector is expanding rapidly, with marketplace lending year to date growth at around 100%. Considering all marketplace lending platforms with a cumulative volume of over €1.1M, AltFi data calculates the Spanish sector’s cumulative lending volume to be €25.66M – including €9.82M in 2015 year alone. A report by Cambridge University and EY valued the whole AltFi market at €62M for 2014.
A new law was recently introduced in Spain, called “Ley de Fomento a la Financiacion Empresarial”. In Spain, creditors are divided into accredited and non-accredited investors. Private accredited investors must have either an income greater than €50,000 per year or assets over €100,000. For companies, they must have assets over €1 million, revenue over €2 million or equity over €300,000. If an investor meets none of these criteria – and is labelled a non-accredited investor – investments are limited to a maximum of €3,000 per company or €10,000 a year.
For companies looking for finance, a maximum of €5 million can be raised as long as exclusively accredited investors are involved and €2 million if non-accredited investors are included. Furthermore, the project is not allowed to raise more than 125% of its initial target.
The new legislation extends to platform regulation. Crowdfunding and marketplace lending platforms are regulated by the CNMV and must have capital of at least €60,000 – or €120,000 for raises over €2 million - or have social responsibility insurance with a minimum coverage of €300,000 for a complaint about damages and €400,000 per year for all complaints.
Only brought in on April 29th 2015, it is hoped that the new rules will reduce market concentration – with 75% of lending estimated to come from banks.
The EY report continues with a breakdown of the alternative finance industry - correct as of publication Feb. 2015 - with each sector given as a proportion of the total 2014 market value (€62M):
Reward-based crowdfunding 57%
P2P Business Lending 22%
Equity-based Crowdfunding 17%
Donation-based Crowdfunding 1.3%
Invoice Trading 1%
Mini-bond Offering 1%
