SocietyOne Strikes Up Partnership with Beyond Bank, Reeling in $1.5 Million

By Julie (Schicktanz) Muhn for Finovate

Australia-based P2P lender SocietyOne announced a new bank partner today. The company has teamed up with Beyond Bank Australia, a $4.8 billion customer-owned financial institution.

Beyond Bank has contributed $1.5 million for an equity stake in SocietyOne and has increased its funding commitment in personal loans on the site to $10 million. The bank anticipates the investment will expand its footing in the fintech sector; CEO Wayne Matters describes the partnership as a “perfect example of our approach to innovation, customer service and new product opportunities.”

This isn’t the first time SocietyOne has received funding from a bank. In 2014, the company received $5 million from Reinventure, a VC management funded by Westpac Bank. Westpac was believed to be the first bank to take an equity stake in a P2P lending organization.

SocietyOne’s online platform uses risk-based pricing to connect borrowers and investors to loans using its ClearMatch technology, which it launched at FinovateAsia 2012 (Finovate returns to Asia this year: Hong Kong on November 8). ClearMatch allows investors to bid together at different interest rates and amounts against a single loan.

In August, SocietyOne announced it had facilitated $38 million in personal loans in 2016. Since the company was founded in 2013, it has facilitated $150 million total. In April, SocietyOne announced it brought on a new CEO, Jason Yetton, and a new CFO, Anna Harper. The company has raised almost $55 million from 8 investors.

First appeared at Finovate Blog