Alcentra, part of the Wall Street banking giant BNY Mellon, will purchase $1bn of US loans over the next few years from peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle ahead of a much-rumoured initial public offering from the UK-based fintech.
AltFi understands from a source familar with the matter that the deal will include a plan to launch the first securitisation programme of Funding Circle’s US loans in the coming year as the firm looks to scale its US securitisation efforts following on from the successful securitisations of its SBOLT programme in the UK.
Funding Circle, the largest P2P platform in the UK, with operations in Europe and the US also, will use the new Alcentra capital to fund loans to US small and mediums sized firms.
The Funding Circle SME Income fund, which also invests in the platform's US loans, along side its UK and European loans, last week unvield a £500m share issuance programme, taking its size to a potential £850m of permanent capital to fund lending.
Bloomberg has also reported that Credit Suisse Group AG will be involved in helping finance the loans as part of the three-way transaction although AltFi has been unable to confirm this.
