LendInvest scoops up £200m from HSBC to launch residential home mortgages

CEO Christian Faes makes his long-awaited push into the £200bn UK home mortgage market.

This morning LendInvest made a surprise-announcement that HSBC UK has opened a bumper £200m funding line for the business to enable its push into residential mortgage lending.

By the end of 2019 LendInvest will now launch its first home loan, which will offer short-term bridging finance for homeowners for up to 12 months.

“We have shown to great effect how our technology-driven approach to lending can succeed in the specialist loans market,” said CEO and cofounder Christian Faes. 

“Our sights are now firmly set on continuing to build out our platform and on ultimately disrupting the £200 billion mainstream UK mortgage market”

Faes stated that his ambition is for LendInvest to eventually become a whole-of-market mortgage provider, with short-term bridging as the first step.

To date LendInvest has lent over £2 billion to commercial property developers and operators of buy-to-let properties.

Faes has long talked up his plan to float LendInvest on the stock exchange—going so far as to call the companies last equity funding round a “pre-IPO” round—and reportedly appointed advisers Lazard last month to advise on such an IPO.

“The deal demonstrates our commitment to providing access to funding in an evolving UK residential property market in order to help support housing supply,” said David Langford, HSBC’s relationship director in their non-bank financial institutions team.

“We look forward to the launch of this exciting mortgage product and seeing how it will benefit new and existing LendInvest customers.”

It’s unclear what impact today’s funding will have on Faes’ IPO plans for LendInvest.