ArchOver narrowed losses and increased lender base in 2020
Business lender ArchOver narrowed its losses last year and increased its lender base organically, despite temporarily pausing new lending when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
According to ArchOver’s latest financial statement for the year ending 31 December 2020, the company made an operating loss of £535,426 – down from a loss of £1,510,175 in 2019.
3,464 lenders were registered on the platform by the end of 2020 – up from 3,328 lenders on 31 December 2019. By 28 February 2021, this figure had risen to 3,481 lenders.
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“Following the government announcement of the initial countrywide lockdown, we decided to pause new lending,” the company said.
“All existing borrowers were contacted to discuss the impact of Covid-19 and we maintained a continuous open dialogue when them throughout 2020.
“The benefits of our previous restructure in late 2019, to drive efficiencies in the business, meant that no further reductions in headcount were necessary during 2020 and we did not need to activate any furlough scheme.”
Across 2020, ArchOver said that the platform successfully continued to service more than 100 live loans.
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To date, ArchOver has facilitated more than £129m in borrowing for British businesses, while lenders have received approximately £9.6m in interest.
Post-pandemic, ArchOver intends to return to office life, and to resume its pre-pandemic objectives of driving internal efficiencies, expanding the business, and developing new opportunities for growth and investment.
“Our loan management and monitoring team in conjunction with our credit analysts continue, as normal, in reviewing all outstanding loans across our active loan book,” said the company.
“The initial view following the countrywide lockdown in early 2020 was considered that many businesses should not face too many difficulties over the shorter term and by working closely with these businesses, we could tackle issues together. As is to be expected, a handful of our borrowers did face concerns as a result of the crisis and wherever possible ArchOver granted those businesses access to government funding.
“The level of funding ArchOver reached in 2020 was predominately due to refinancing existing clients, those that required additional funding and those that were not heavily impacted from Covid-19,” the company added.
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