This article showcases our top picks for the best London based Lending companies. These startups and companies are taking a variety of approaches to innovating the Lending industry, but are all exceptional companies well worth a follow.
We tried to pick companies across the size spectrum from cutting edge startups to established brands.
We selected these startups and companies for exceptional performance in one of these categories:
- Innovation
- Innovative ideas
- Innovative route to market
- Innovative product
- Growth
- Exceptional growth
- Exceptional growth strategy
- Management
- Societal impact
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Top London Lending Companies
Data sourced from Crunchbase and SemRush.
Zopa
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Zopa is a P2P money lending service that allows lenders and borrowers to deal directly with one another, cutting out the banks who act as middlemen. Zopa works in the following way: the company first categorizes borrower credit grades with an A*, A, B, C or Y rating; then lenders make offers that vary by money amount and time period for persons with a certain credit grade, and borrowers can then agree the aggregate offered rate.
Zopa takes on such responsibilities as distributing money between parties, completing the legal paperwork, performing borrower identity/credit checks, and employing a collections agency that chases missed payments for the lender. Zopa also mitigates risk for lenders by enforcing monthly direct debit repayment, making borrowers sign a legal contract, and allowing lenders to lend small chunks of money to individual borrowers (i.e.
someone lending £1000 would have their money spread across say, 100 borrowers). The company itself makes money by charging a fixed fee for borrowers and a 1% annual fee for lenders.
Zopa has received public acclaim as well, having been awarded CNET Technology Awards’ 2006 Internet Innovation of the Year, the 2007 Webby Award for Best Banking/Bill-Paying Website, the 2008 Webby Award for Financial Services, the Banker 2007 Award for Best Internet Project and Moneywise 2009 Awards for Best Customer Service and Best Personal Loan. One of the three initial members of the UK’s Peer-to-Peer Finance Association, together with FundingCircle and RateSetter.
Other P2P lending services include [Lending Club](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/LendingClub), [Prosper](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/Prosper), and [Kiva](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/Kiva).. WaveOptics is developing low-energy lenses that provide a live display for the wearer but can be fitted into ordinary spectacles frames..
Aave
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Aave (from the Finnish word for “ghost”) is an open source non-custodial protocol on Ethereum for decentralized lending and borrowing. For lenders, the protocol mints ERC20-compliant aTokens at a 1:1 ratio to supplied assets.
Interest immediately starts compounding continuously, represented by a steady increase in the amount of aTokens held by the lender. This interest stream may be redirected to any address, separate from the aTokens that represent the underlying principal.
Aave offers flash loans: trustless, uncollateralized loans where borrowing and repayment must occur in the same transaction. Aimed at developers, this feature could lead to innovative uses of DeFi..
The m-MSR is small, with few moving parts, it can be a third cheaper to run than a large fossil fuelled engine. It massively reduces waste, and is fuelled-for-life, avoiding proliferation of spent fuel.
Funding Circle
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When Funding Circle was founded, they could see that businesses weren’t being given the finance to grow, while investors were making poor returns. They had a simple idea — let them support each other.
By lending directly to businesses through Funding Circle, investors can now earn attractive returns to better provide for their future. Businesses get fast, easy access to funding to grow, create jobs, support local communities and drive the economy forward.
They believe it’s better for everyone.. .
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Nexo
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Over the past 10 years, we have been providing instant loans to millions of people across Europe. We believe that the expanding digital world helps improve our lives.
We would like to contribute by providing The World’s First Instant Crypto-backed Loans.. .
iwoca
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Iwoca provides small business credit finance services in the United Kingdom. It offers finance for businesses for various purposes ranging from bridging short-term cashflow gaps to investing in stock opportunities.
It serves retailers, restaurants, hotels, service providers, and more. Christoph Rieche and James Dear founded iwoca on October 1, 2011.
iwoca’s headquarters is located in London in the United Kingdom.. .
OakNorth
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In 2005, our co-founders, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, were looking for a working capital facility to support their growing business, Copal Partners, a financial research firm they’d founded three years previously. They approached numerous high-street banks and kept getting variations of the same response – “the computer says ‘No’”.
Despite being a profitable business with strong cash flow and retained clients, none of the commercial banks were willing to lend to them. It was too small a ticket to offset the costs the bank would incur in doing a fundamental assessment of their business and structuring a finance facility for their needs.
A few months later through one of their institutional client’s special situations desk, they managed to secure 100x the amount of debt for a dividend recap. So, an institutional division of a bank was able to support them, but the commercial lending part of the bank was not.
This experience stuck with them. After they’d scaled Copal Partners to a 3,000-employee business and sold it to Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO) in 2014, they set out to address the funding gap they had experienced first-hand and empower the Missing Middle, through launching OakNorth.
OakNorth’s (ON) Credit Intelligence Suite transforms commercial lending by helping banks build deeper relationships with their clients, open new, more profitable opportunities, whilst delivering credit decisions up to ten times faster than traditional models, with lower risk and greater efficiency. Credit Intelligence is a data-driven technology that gives lenders a forward-looking view of the borrower based on expansive and dynamic data sets and scenarios specific to that business, using automated, continuous analysis of multiple drivers across the business, its peer group and the wider economy.
This provides an independent, consistent, detailed framework offering deep contextual insight that enables rapid underwriting, immediate stress-testing and more agile and targeted strategic lending. Built over five years by an engineering and credit science team of over 250 people, the ON Credit Intelligence Suite has propelled OakNorth Bank in the UK into the top 1% of banks in developed markets in terms of RORE and efficiency, enabling it to profitably manage a multi-billion-dollar commercial lending portfolio – benefits that banks across the world can now realize.
LANDBAY
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LANDBAY – The full-stack mortgage lender. Landbay facilitates retail, institutional and local government ifnvestment into UK residential mortgages.
They direct-match funding to diversified portfolios via their platform, supporting the growth of quality private rental accommodation throughout England and Wales. Landbay mortgages are originated through a network of accredited intermediaries and via strategic partnerships, including Zoopla Property Group.
Fully authorised and regulated by the FCA. No FSCS.
Capital at risk.. .
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RateSetter
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RateSetter is a peer-to-peer lending website that allows its users to lend and borrow money directly from each other according to their own interest rates. The business primarily originates unsecured personal loans, and also arranges secured auto dealer financing and property financing.
As a peer-to-peer platform, RateSetter connects investors and borrowers and therefore does not hold deposits or loans on its balance sheet.. We donate 10% of our produce to charities that fight food poverty.
Funding Options
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Funding Options is a business to business services marketplace platform operating in the UK and the Netherlands.
ezbob
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ezbob is a pioneer in the rapidly growing ‘lending-as-a-service’ (LaaS) sector. We offer a best-in-class modular and end-to-end lending solution and guide banks and financial institutions through complex digital transformation.
ezbob offers an open platform that enables financial institutions to build, launch and operate financial products for their customers, drawing on the data-rich open banking environment. It has cut loan servicing costs for clients by up to 80%, whilst allowing their SME customers to receive a lending decision in just 7 minutes, with funds transferred on the same day.
It’s proving a game changer for the lending sector. In 2019, ezbob won ‘Best Fintech Partnership’ in The Banker’s Tech Projects Awards for the company’s Smart Onboarding product and was also a winner in the Banking Technology Awards, organised by FinTech Futures..
The product is completely free to all end users with no interest or fees applicable. Knoma works with leading coding and tech schools.
We are a fun and driven team, ready to make an impact!. So ours comes packed with care..
Trade Ledger
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Trade Ledger is a Business lending platform.
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Proportunity
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Proportunity is a technology-driven mortgage lender. The company pushes the edge on real estate data-driven investment insights.
It uses machine learning to accurately forecast house prices and up-and-coming areas, providing loans to buyers looking to purchase homes in forecasted high-growing areas. Vadim Toader and Stefan Boronea started Proportunity in 2016, which is headquartered in London, England..
Every kit has a set of readily available experiments to spark curiosity. The number of experiments is only limited by one’s creativity! Twin digital application consists of interdisciplinary courses that expose the kids to scientific concepts.
This platform also provides a community, where Twinners can share and celebrate their experiments and learn together. In the advanced stages, using patterns of the children from their digital journey, Twin will offer a customized learning path for each child.
Knoma
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Knoma offers a payment solution and marketplace for lifelong learning. The business is tackling the digital skills gap as the global economy shifts into the fourth industrial revolution.
We help people looking to future proof their career or move into new areas of work by reducing the barrier of payment and removing the pain point of sourcing technical courses. The business is built upon the firm belief in the importance of lifelong education to drive improvements in our customers’ future prosperity.
We believe education should be accessed in a short, but frequent manner; at a lower price point and a focus on gaining technical, digital and data skill-sets. All users can gain access up to £10,000, where the cost of a course can be spread over 12 months with flexible repayments.
The product is completely free to all end users with no interest or fees applicable. Knoma works with leading coding and tech schools.
We are a fun and driven team, ready to make an impact!. .
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Sharegain is a capital markets fintech democratising the $2.5tn securities lending industry.
LendInvest
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LendInvest operates an online marketplace for property lending and investing. Its online marketplace platform lets everyday investors access various types of asset classes; and underwrites and pre-funds various investments.
LendInvest also offers short-term property finance, such as bridge loans, development loans, and buy-to-let loans. Christian Faes and Ian Thomas founded it in 2008, with its headquarters in London in the United Kingdom..
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Playter Pay
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Introducing the Klarna of Recruitment. We believe that recruitment agencies are vital to the growth of SMEs in the UK.
But we also understand that SMEs cashflow is undeniably important, meaning that the large upfront costs of recruitment fees can sometimes be a burden. Introducing Playter.
We help fund the SME growth experience through the usage of recruitment agencies. Don’t pay recruitment fees upfront, let us help you pay the invoice over 6 months, whilst we pay your recruitment agencies on day 1, keeping them delighted in the process! So, stop paying big fees upfront and stop looking for the best recruitment agencies to work with, we will help you scale your SME to new heights by paying with Playter..
Loanpad
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Loanpad is a peer-to-peer lending platform with the operational simplicity and control of an online account.. It offers soups, bouillons, sauces, snacks, mayonnaise, salad dressings, olive oil, margarines, spreads, and frozen foods, as well as cooking products, such as liquid margarines under Knorr, Hellmann’s, Becel/Flora, Rama/Blue Band, Calvé, WishBone, Amora, Ragù, and Bertolli brands.
The company also provides ice creams under the international Heart brand, including Cornetto, Magnum, Carte d’Or and Solero, Wall’s, Kibon, Algida, Ola, Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Klondike, and Popsicle brands; tea-based beverages under Lipton, Brooke Bond, and PG Tips brands; weight management products under Slim-Fast brand; and nutritionally enhanced products under Annapurna and AdeS/Adez brands. In addition, it offers personal care products, including deodorants, anti-perspirants, skin care, and hair care products under Dove, Lux, Rexona, Sunsilk, Axe, Pond’s, Suave, Clear, Lifebuoy, and Vaseline brands, as well as oral care products under Signal and Close Up brands.
Further, the company provides laundry products, such as tablets, powders, liquids, and soap bars under Omo, Surf, Comfort, Radiant, Skip, and Snuggle brands; and household care products, including surface cleaners and bleach under Cif, Domestos, and Sun/Sunlight brands. It also offers solutions for professional chefs and caterers.
The company sells its products through its sales force, independent brokers, agents, and distributors to chain, wholesale, co-operative, and independent grocery accounts; and food service distributors and institutions. It also distributes its products through a network of distribution centers, satellite warehouses, company-operated and public storage facilities, and depots..
Lendingblock
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Lendingblock is a securities lending platform for cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Elfin Market
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Elfin Market is a peer-to-peer lending platform which offers its borrowers an affordable alternative to credit cards.
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Populous World
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At Populous World, we work with businesses that need external financial assistance to fund their growth or ease short-term cash flow related issues. We endeavour to facilitate businesses globally, with our swift and innovative approach to business funding, allowing the invoice finance process to be less restrictive and easier for businesses to on board.
Our invoice finance platform is well positioned to break down the barriers of funding and allow more companies to participate in this market place – raising finance from outstanding invoices, but on a selective basis. Armed with a team of highly experienced technology and finance experts.
Populous World are well positioned to disrupt the invoice finance industry.. .
Relendex
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Relendex is primarily a marketplace for investors seeking a low risk environment that produces higher returns than banks, secured lending against commercial and residential properties in many cases producing income from tenants. They offer a new asset class that provides attractive returns to lenders.
Their lenders, both private and institutional investors have direct access to UK professional real-estate lending. They have developed their own auction engine to match a single borrower with multiple lenders.
Lenders choose the loans that meet their lending criteria and then acquire loan parts.. .
Castle Trust
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Castle Trust is a privately held company that provides investment and mortgage products.
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Banking Circle
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A fully licensed bank, Banking Circle is a next-generation provider of mission-critical financial services infrastructure leading the rise of a super-correspondent banking network. Banks and Payments businesses can access a range of banking services – multi-currency bank accounts, local clearing, cross border payments and flexible business lending, compliantly and securely – without the need to build their own infrastructure and correspondent banking partner network.
Bespoke, flexible, scalable and futureproofed solutions enable financial services businesses to do what they’re really good at – serving the end client successfully and efficiently – thereby allowing them to seize market opportunities. Bypass old, bureaucratic and expensive systems and enable global banking services for your clients.
Financial infrastructure you can bank on.. .
Logical Glue
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Logical Glue specializes in predictive analytics software. The Logical Glue platform is powered by explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) that combines fast, transparent, accurate decision-making with trustworthy, actionable insights, giving businesses an enviable competitive edge.
It allows lenders and insurers to manage key areas of their enterprise including customer retention, new business development, process optimization, and risk management. Logical Glue was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in London..
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Allium Money
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Allium Money specialises in financing energy efficient home improvement projects.
Emerio Banque
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Emerio Banque Ltd is an International trade finance and investment firms providing innovative and structured trade finance, letter of credit, bank guarantees, documentary collections, transactional services, payroll services, fixed-term deposits, and payments transfer services to international corporates as well as individual clients with an expert and experienced team of business professionals. If you are a global import/export business and looking for a financial partner to help you accelerate your global business sales as well as resources to streamline your business finance operations, then Emerio Banque is the right place.
Our financial experts possess a fundamental understanding of the way you run your business so that we can provide you the customized and custom-tailored financial services as per your specific solutions. International Trade Finance Instruments By Emerio Banque 1.
Letter of Credit 2. Bank Guarantees 3.
Documentary Collection 4. Lending Services 5.
Investment & Transactional Services Tell us your requirements via mail or by visiting our website. .
Library of Things
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Library of Things is a start-up that lends out products from drills to sound systems to GoPros from smart borrowing kiosks.
Fundsquire UK
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We specialise in R&D Advance Funding, giving eligible businesses the opportunity to access their future tax credit payments in the form of an early R&D tax credit loan. Whether you’re a pre-revenue startup that’s between funding rounds, have seasonal or lumpy cash flow, or are just looking for more capital, Fundsquire can help you boost cash flow and grow your business.
Among different funding options, the R&D loan boasts an amazing additional benefit. If you’re a high growth tech scale-up and are borrowing money to invest in R&D, the Advance Funding will allow you to increase the size of your final R&D tax credit..
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MoneyBaba
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Moneybaba operates exclusively online and focusing on responsible lending and facilitating access to credit across emerging countries.
Pepper Money
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Pepper Money is a lender offering, exclusively through intermediaries, a variety of residential and sale mortgages that use common sense.
SME Capital
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SME Capital is a debt funding platform matching institutional investors.
Tbc Bank Group
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TBC Bank Group PLC is the UK-based parent company of JSC TBC Bank and its affiliates, Georgia’s largest banking group.
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Brismo
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Brismo brings efficiency to the market in loans, enabling loan originators to create credible performance metrics, and investors to deploy capital more productively and cost effectively. They have the broadest market coverage, working with originators of loans – from SME and consumer, to real estate and receivables – and providing market leading performance metrics to a range of investor clients.
Since launching in the UK in 2014 their methodology has gained traction globally. They now cover over 65% of UK and European marketplace lending, over 50% of US marketplace lending, and are extending coverage to additional geographies, origination models, and loan types.
They recently expanded into ‘direct lending’ and have also created metrics dedicated to reviewing the performance of real estate lenders. They are the sole providers of a standardised, like for like comparable, loan performance track record enabling for standardised measurement of both return and risk.
Their geographic performance indices have gained traction amongst investors seeking to benchmark loan investment performance and represent the only way to measure the performance of the asset class.. .
CreditSCRIPT
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CreditSCRIPT is an alternative credit investment platform that helps professional investors assess loans and portfolios originated by online marketplace lenders. The company offers the latest technology and analytics solutions to evaluate price and track financial portfolios of loans such as consumer, student, SME, auto, and mortgages.
The company helps clients to deliver the alpha in the daily performance and understand and monitor the risk in real time. Its client base consists global institutional credit investors, banks and wealth managers, and professional investors seeking access to superior income generating assets and alternative finance investments.
CreditSCRIPT was founded on 2016 and is based in London.. .
Wizzcash
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wizzcash.com is a trading style of Emergency Cash Limited Company.
Amicus Finance
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Amicus is a financial services group, delivering outstanding property finance, commercial mortgages and asset finance solutions.
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Brydg
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Brydg is a property financing and asset backed lending platform.
Wellesley
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Wellesley Group launched in June 2013 and has grown to become a prominent player in the alternative property finance space, an asset class traditionally dominated by the high street banks. An independent British business, Wellesley facilitates access to credit for creditworthy small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who undertake property development activities across the UK in the property sector.
Within Wellesley Group, Wellesley Finance provides property development finance. It takes security over a property developer’s project and monitors the construction on a regular basis.
Wellesley Finance receives its funding from retail investors who invest in retail bonds that it has issued directly. It also employs Peer-to-Peer lending investments which are operated by Wellesley & Co Limited.
Both Wellesley Finance Plc and Wellesley & Co Limited are subsidiaries of Wellesley Group Investors Limited.. Besides playing host to many meetup groups, we also run our very own In the Brain Series, comprising of talks by the world’s most innovative minds, often the creators of new ideas or practices, who we invite over to London to share their expertise, skills and Brain with our community.
These talks are free and we often run 2 or 3 different talks each night (except Friday, when our team goes for a drink 🙂 If you learned something new at any of our talks, the deal is you try it out at work or on your pet project and, if you learn something new whilst doing so, we hope you come back to share what you’ve learned with others in our community! We also run some 25 different conferences every year, both in London and New York. We ussually run a conference when we have discovered a new trend of ideas, technology or practice – we believe in it – and are keen to spread the word …
Our 1 or 2 day eXchanges offer a brilliant opportunity to learn all about these in a small, intimate environment where speakers and attendees mingle, share skills and attend talks. With plenty of breaks and a speaker delegate ratio of 1:6, you can really spend time directly with the creators – to learn what the technology is now, but also where it is going.
Money Zebra
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Money Zebra is a financial services auction platform with credit history ledger and basic scoring engine (for non-IDs) crafted for emerging markets. Our Mission Unlock access to fairly priced financial services to the emerging markets.
Legitimise ‘hidden’ people and provide them with equal opportunities. Provide access to capital to achieve poverty eradication.
Money Zebra is an auction platform where millions of financial product applications are bet on by the service providers from across the globe, who compete with each other to offer the best terms to the emerging market customers based on the data and Credit Score provided.. .
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Real Funds
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Real Funds is London based peer-to-peer lending platform disrupting the oligopolistic position of a few major house builders by providing alternative finance to small and medium-sized house builders, who currently have limited access to finance, especially after 2008 banking crisis. At the same time, we are opening this exclusive market, which was previously available only to those with high capital and the right connections.
Through our platform, one can invest in asset-backed property development projects in their local community and beyond for as little as £100, for returns of up to 7% per annum with monthly interest from the date of the investment. In addition, all our projects have first legal charge, meaning all the investment is secured against the property making them assets backed.
Our ultimate vision for the future is where cities will be financially self-sustainable, with local communities investing in local property development projects.. The WAYN Founders have also launched a new dating site under the WAYN umbrella.
WAYN Dating helps people find their match based on doing what they love.. .
Os Money
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Os Money is a best Online Leander In United Kingdom.
eCoinomic
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eCoinomic.net is a financial services platform for crypto owners. Its premiere service is fiat loans backed by crypto collateral.
eCoinomic.net aims to bridge the gap between fiat and crypto worlds by bringing together cryptocurrency holders and institutional investors/family offices into a single financial network. How does the system work? Institutional investors and family offices are always interested in new low-risk instruments with high profitability.
And crypto owners wish to benefit from their digital assets and preserve them for the long term hoping to gain more value. The smart contracts on the eCoinomic.net platform will solve these needs.
Crypto owners will get an opportunity to obtain fiat loans using digital assets as collateral. Institutional investors and family offices will explore a new mortgage market by issuing fiat loans to crypto community.
81% of the funds gathered during the Token Sale (exceeding the USD 6 million softcap) will be used to form the Reserve. The Reserve will not be spent – it will be used solely to provide full coverage for the lending funds from the institutional investors and family offices.
Thus we ensure their participation. We consider cryptocurrency as a new perspective type of collateral that can change the market for secured loans tremendously.
Lenno
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Lenno is a financial services company specializing in lending money,insurance,payments and other financial services.
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Bridge Invest
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Boutique short term finance provider in the UK property market
Pitchstor
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Pitchstor is a digital funding mechanism or in other words an online bank for financing, operating in the disruptive era of FinTech.
You may write to us at: BestStartup.co.uk/Fupping Ltd, 349 Royal College Street, London, England, NW1 9QS.