Profitability continues to elude the majority of peer-to-peer lending platforms – but not all of them. Assetz Capital, a secured peer-to-peer lender, has announced a continuation of profit in its half year results.
The company claims to have recorded a “seven figure” pre-tax profit from April to September 2017, following on from a profitable performance for the entire 2016/17 financial year. A detailed breakdown of the accounts has not been made available, but Assetz has said in a press release that it boasts a revenue run-rate of roughly £15m per annum.
“We have reported considerable growth and stability over the past four years, and now that profitably has been consistently achieved in parallel to that strong growth, we continue to go from strength to strength,” said Stuart Law (pictured), CEO of Assetz Capital.
“While many in this market are obsessed purely by lending totals, we believe there are other strong measurements of success that must be achieved to have a sustainable company that is a solid and large-scale institution of the future. Two of these are profitability and strong net returns for investors, and we continue to post strongly in both of these areas.”
Obsessed by lending totals or not, Assetz made note in its release that it had lent “well over” £110m in the six-month period from April to September 2017. AltFi Data’s records indicate that the firm has facilitated a touch shy of £360m to date. Meanwhile its investors are said to have earned total gross interest of £30m since its launch in 2014. The platform was granted full authorisation by the FCA in September.
In general, secured P2P lenders in the UK seemed to have carved their way to profitability more swiftly than their unsecured counterparts. Zopa and Funding Circle’s most recent updates indicate narrowing losses, but neither has yet reported profitable results. On the other hand Lendy, a property lending platform, claimed to have reaped £2.74m in profits in its most recent results.
