By Daniel Lanyon on Tuesday 29 August 2017
The platform announced that it had received full FCA authorisation earlier this month and has been getting to work on its IFISA launch.
The platform announced that it had received full FCA authorisation earlier this month and has been getting to work on its IFISA launch.
UK peer-to-peer lending platform ThinCats is poised to launch its own Innovative Finance ISA and is expecting to substantial new cash invested via the tax wrapper.
In a letter to investors on the ThinCats platform, the firm outlined that since gaining FCA authorisation nearly four weeks ago, a prerequisite for an IFISA launch, it has been putting considerable efforts to launch the product.
The ThinCats IFISA will allow investors to shield up to £20,000 of money this tax year from tax liability as well as money held in previous years’ ISA allowances to be transferred.
This raises two challenges. Firstly, the ThinCats team said in its communiqué, it must build out the necessary technology.
“There are many IT developments necessary for the administrative changes required to operate the IFISA. These involve developing the ability to open a ThinCats ISA online, so that in most instances you will not need to complete any paper forms. Clearly this will make the new ThinCats ISA very easy to use, but does mean that the development work required is considerable,” it said.
Secondly, the team is expecting demand to be strong for its investment products.
“We anticipate a significant amount of new funds on the platform as a result of the ThinCats ISA. The number of lenders who have registered their interest is also quite large. Accordingly, we will invite lenders to open their ISA account in the order that they registered their interest,” it added.
ThinCats is headed up by CEO John Mould. Co-founded by Kevin Caley, ESF Capital acquired a 73.4% equity stake in the secured business lending platform back in early December 2015.
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Daniel Lanyon