New Milestone: Peer-to-Peer Lender Flender Celebrates First Wave of Successfully Funded SME Loans

By Samantha Hurst

The recently launched peer-to-peer lending platform, Flender, announced on Thursday it is celebrating the successful funding of its first batch of SME loans. According to the online lender, companies that received their requested funding include one of Europe’s fastest growing lingerie retailers, a café, and coffee roasting chain, a further education provider and developers of non-toxic disinfectant technology.

Flender, which recently gained full authorization from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and launched a tax-free Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA), stated it wants to revolutionize the way people lend and borrow, fostered by a culture of loyalty and trust”

“Flender believes that peer-to-peer finance shouldn’t just be an anonymous and soulless transaction based purely on getting the highest interest rate from people wanting to borrow money. Flender allows users to borrow and lend money to friends, connections or businesses. Borrowers can create and share a personalised link to their campaigns on social networks, or invite chosen individuals directly by email. Business owners can expand with the help of their customer base, which in turn helps businesses to improve their products and services, and thereby reward their customers, while bypassing traditional banks for growth funding.”

Founder of Flender, Oli Cavanagh, also revealed:

“It was important to us that we show how much we believe in this lending model. We conducted public equity crowdfunding because we wanted to demonstrate that the idea of funding by the ‘crowd’ really works.”

Flender added that all borrowing and lending are completed online through a desktop or smartphone, in a paperless transaction, with automated payments and digital contracts that provide a secure legal framework. The lender noted its online process is fast, user-friendly and returns attractive rates for lenders.

As previously reported, Flender secured £501,700 from more than 230 investors through its Seedrs round earlier this year and is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under Registration Number 657861.