RateSetter Australia reports growth in lending ahead of IPO plans
RateSetter Australia has moved to reassure investors about the platform’s performance during the Covid-19 crisis and is reportedly still preparing for a stock market listing.
Daniel Foggo, chief executive of the peer-to-peer lending platform’s Australian arm, has appointed advisers Highbury Partnership and Bell Potter to help the firm prepare for a flotation on the Australian Securities Exchange, according to a report in The Australian Financial Review.
Read more: What’s happening at RateSetter?
He also sent an update to investors to inform them of the business’s performance during the pandemic and its plans for the listing.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Foggo told investors RateSetter Australia has grown its lending to AUS$800m (£443.1m) since inception, and more recently it has seen its renewable loan volumes rise by 75 per cent between January and March.
Read more: RateSetter reports fewer asset finance defaults than expected
This was offset by a drop in automotive lending, which fell by 60 per cent in April, before jumping to more normal levels in May.
Foggo said that 3.3 per cent of the platform’s active borrowers were in difficulty during the coronavirus, which he believes is fewer than half the rates of some of the lender’s rivals.
The update comes as RateSetter’s parent company, the UK-based RateSetter, is in talks to be acquired by challenger Metro Bank.
RateSetter UK owns about 15 per cent of the Australian business.