ThinCats Investor Update June 2016; Over $3m Loaned, Over 300 Registered Lenders & New Website
Wholesale Investor 7 July 2016
As our 2016 financial year draws to a close, here’s a short summary of milestones achieved along with news of some exciting times ahead as we cement our position as the leading Peer-to-Business (P2B) Lending Platform in Australia.
Key Milestones
Over $3m (25 loans) to a diverse range of SME borrowers and a pipeline forecast to grow our loan book to over $20m (100 plus loans) within 12 months.
Over 300 registered Lenders (wholesale investors and Self-Managed Super Funds) receiving an average yield of 13.8% p.a. on loans secured by business assets, mortgages (in some instances) and personal guarantees of directors – zero default on loans since inception.
The average direct loan size per lender, per loan, is over $7k, meaning that a loan for $200k would generally be financed by up to 30 lenders, each making a direct decision to lend after evaluating all loan information, financials, and borrower credit checks, all transparently provided on the platform. It’s pure P2B lending, as ThinCats do not earn a margin spread, with lenders receiving all the interest paid by borrowers on the platform.
A number of alliances with loan referral sources, including over 100 finance brokers and accountants to refer loans, and leading edge technology providers. This enables us to automate our processes, improve credit analytics and ultimately better serving borrowers and lenders.
A $30m funding arrangement (over 2 years) to part finance selected larger loans, with our JV partners ThinCats/ESF, who enter their 6th year of operations with over $400m in loans making them a leading P2B lending platform in the UK.
A larger and stronger Australian sales, digital marketing, finance and administration team with over 100 years of combined senior banking and lending experience, positioned to meet future business growth needs.
A new website with social business channel that transparently communicates our differentiation from all other market place and non-bank lenders. Watch this space for further updates into the digital business arena.
Our values and skill sets place ThinCats in a unique position where we squarely focus on the least serviced segment of the SME borrower market, profitable SME’s looking for growth finance (loans over $100k) over longer terms (up to 60 months) at competitive rates (up to 16% p.a.). These businesses are “bankable” but cannot raise funding from their bank as they have run out of homes to offer as security.
Generally other market place and non-bank business lenders provide quick turnaround, short-term (< 12 months) small loans (under $100k) at high interest rates (up to 80% p.a.) on an unsecured basis, servicing an entirely different segment of SME borrowers.
As a final note, your support as founding customers to date has been invaluable to us and we thank you sincerely for this. We would also greatly appreciate you continuing to help us grow brand awareness of ThinCats across Australia, as a truly unique business lending platform. Our Twitter handle is @thincatsAUS and you can easily search and follow us on LinkedIn as we amplify and grow our online brand presence with a large boost planned by our new CMO starting 1 July.
