What an exciting and insightful week it has been. With Monday and Tuesday being occupied by Lendit Europe 2016, thousands gathered to watch dozens of panels presenting their ideas. Kicking off the first day, Samir Desai, Co-Founder and CEO of Funding Circle led the day off with his presentation titled ‘Fintech: Combining the Best of Both Worlds.’ Desai cited the three trends which have benefitted the industry so far:
- Banks are restricting lending, thus it wont be as common and private funds are moving in.
- P2P lenders are capital light business models that reduce friction and transaction costs.
- Low interest rates. Investors desire yield and alternative lending continues to produce high returns with lower volatility.
After Samir, Reinder van Dijk of Oxera presented his report ‘The Economics of Peer-to-Peer Lending.’ Which focused more on the UK p2p lending industry and included private data from top companies within the UK.
Other speakers included;
- Christina Farnish (P2PFA), who commented on the importance that the FCA use an evidence based approach in order to develop a regulatory regime and keep track of what is happening in the industry. Farnish believes that p2p lending industry primarily needs to be isolated from the term ‘crowdfunding’, as it is of different concept.
- Neil Rimer, (Co-Founder and Partner of Index Venture) who spoke of his views on the current venture capital market. He pinpointed the challenges consumer lending faces globally, commenting that more banks are willing to lend in some countries more than others.
After this, leading companies Zopa, RateSetter, LendInvest, MarketInvoice and Funding Circle all took part in a panel to discuss Brexit, ISAs and other contemporary issues. The companies also shared their differing business models.
Everything discussed in this article is available to view here
Photo by www.lendacademy.com
