Rebuildingsociety to add more loans after investor feedback
Rebuildingsociety is planning to add more loans onto its platform and improve its communication about defaults, among other changes in response to investor feedback.
A survey of more than 100 of the peer-to-peer lending platform’s investors, published on its website, found that the majority were pleased with its performance during the pandemic.
The survey revealed that three-quarters agreed with its Covid-related borrower concessions and 66 per cent said they have been able to access funds when needed.
A third (32 per cent) of investors said they felt Rebuildingsociety is performing well compared to other P2P platforms and a further 40 per cent said it is doing okay, while 15 per cent are waiting for improvement before ‘investing seriously’.
Rebuildingsociety said overall sentiment seems to be that there are not enough loans on the platform to allow for a diverse portfolio, as it had not added any new lending opportunities for two months prior to the survey. It said this was because it has been difficult to find good loans due to challenging market conditions.
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The platform said it is working to improve its outreach to businesses to bring more, ideally lower risk, loans to the platform but only wants to add investments that will be 100 per cent funded and where the borrower has passed its credit risk process.
Furthermore, in response to lender feedback, Rebuildingsociety said it will improve its communication about defaulted loans and bring in extra resources for recoveries.
The platform said it will also improve its communication and education on risk-mitigating features such as the buyback guarantee.
The product aims to reduce lenders’ capital risk, with the microloan seller guaranteeing to buy back the loan part in the event of a default. However, Rebuildingsociety found that 83 per cent of its investors had never heard of it.
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“We’re hoping this demonstrates most people have had a good experience and could access their money when they needed it,” Daniel Rajkumar, managing director of Rebuildingsociety, told Peer2Peer Finance News.
“A lot of the responses were pretty encouraging I thought. The changes I’m looking to make include bringing in a marketing person, providing some extra resources for recovering processes and trying to promote the buyback guarantee – clearly not a lot of people knew about it and the people that did really valued it.”
Rajkumar said that Rebuildingsociety is making more effort to find more creditworthy businesses and is collaborating with Basildon Council on joint campaigns.
However, he said that market uncertainty is making it more challenging to find these types of borrowers.
“Whilst there’s uncertainty, there’s less confidence in the market for taking risk and growing a business,” he said.
“We have to keep our finger on the pulse of how the market is reacting to current affairs, stepping forward with trepidation.”