SocietyOne breaks through $300 million of lending
SocietyOne, Australia’s pioneering and leading marketplace lender, has broken through $300 million of total originations since it started operating five years ago with 2017 on track to set further lending records.
SocietyOne advanced over $100 million of new lending during the first half of 2017, underlining its position as the clear leader in the Australian consumer marketplace lending sector.
Combined lending of $45 million in the first quarter of 2017 and $57 million in the second quarter resulted in year-on-year growth of almost 70% for the six months ending 30 June 2017. That compares to $61 million of new lending advanced in the first half of 2016.
SocietyOne’s loan book increased by $60 million over the past six months and now stands at $189 million.
The first half of 2017 saw a record amount of committed funds made available by investor funders with new mandates secured from existing and new institutions and high net worth individuals, taking the total to 315 funders and current available funding of $68.3 million as at 30 June 2017.
Jason Yetton, SocietyOne’s CEO and managing director, said the results for the first half of 2017 reflected the strong momentum of the business.
“Growing interest from borrowers and investor funders over the past 12 months is proof that our proposition of offering a better deal than the major banks and providing investors attractive risk-adjusted returns is making a real different in the marketplace for personal loans,” said Mr Yetton.
“As a result, our customers have now driven six successive quarters of strong growth. This has taken our total originated lending from $70 million at the start of January 2016 to more than $300 million over the last 18 months.
“This is a testament to the great work of our 90 people who have helped make it happen for our borrowers and investor funders since we started lending almost five years ago. It’s particularly pleasing to see this one team effort recognised with three major awards over the past couple of months including the Best Innovative Retail Product at the 2017 Australian Retail Banking Awards.
“Over the past 12 months we have had more than 140,000 Australians enquire about a loan with SocietyOne which shows that consumers are responding in large numbers to the idea they can leverage their good credit history to get a better deal.
“This has been underlined by the strong support of our customers for the Government’s open banking and comprehensive credit reporting reforms with 88% of respondents [1] backing the proposal to give consumers more control of their data and 72% saying banks should share that information.”
[1] Results of a survey of 480 customers who responded to a series of questions sent out to current SocietyOne customers between 17 May 2017 and 25 May 2017 following the announcements by the Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison in the Budget on 9 May 2017 about the new open banking regime and the extension to the current comprehensive credit reporting system.
