Strong growth in lending and demand from UK small businesses in the past three months has enabled rebuildingsociety.com to pass the milestone and facilitate nearly £1.2m of loans to SMEs in a nine month period.
The rapid growth has encouraged rebuildingsociety.com to target £20m of borrowing by the end of 2014.
Average loans to SMEs are now £61,000 and the Leeds-based firm has received 50% more loan requests from businesses in the three months to November 22 compared the previous three months.
rebuildingsociety.com said applications are coming from a wide range of industries and sectors including franchises, pubs and chartered accountants as peer-to-peer financing becomes part of the mainstream of borrowing options for growing small businesses.
Daniel Rajkumar, managing director of rebuildingsociety.com, said: “The SME sector is recovering along with the wider economy and that is reflected in the growth we are experiencing.
“P2P in general is seeing strong levels of interest from SMEs and consumers because of the value it creates for both parties.
“The businesses that borrow through rebuildingsociety.com have effectively won a crowd of stakeholders with an interest in their success which is more powerful and valuable than institutional finance.”
Ian Gurney, founder of the P2P Money website, said: "2013 has seen phenomenal growth with this sector. Having launched only in September 2012, rebuildingsociety.com achieving £1m of loans within the year is amazing.
“With average lending rates above 15% rebuildingsociety.com is in a very good position to continue attract new lenders to continue this growth. A target of £20m of loans within 2014 is certainly achievable."
rebuildingsociety.com currently has around 300 active online lenders who have offered a total of around £1.2m to British businesses.
Lenders provide funding to SMEs on their own terms and as rebuildingsociety.com has lower overheads than banks and building societies, borrowers can refinance expensive bank products like overdrafts, while lenders make a bigger return compared to traditional savings accounts (2.14%).
There are no early repayment charges for borrowers and no limit on the number of loans that can be facilitated through rebuildingsociety.com. The average time between application and receiving a loan for is down to 14 days.
