Brickowner increases minimum investment
Brickowner has raised its minimum investment threshold from £500 to £1,000 due to “changes to the regulatory environment”.
The property lender noted that the change does not affect any investments which have already been made to date which may be for an amount lower than £1,000.
However, Brickowner told customers that any investors who already have £500 invested and wish to increase their invested amount, will have to increase their investment by at least another £500.
“Our decision has been largely led by changes to the regulatory environment,” said Brickowner in a message to lenders.
“Furthermore, when we look at the amounts invested by existing investors, a large portion of our investors already invest over £1,000.
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“We are confident that this change continues to meet our mission of making professional-grade investments available to suitable retail investors.”
Earlier this year, JustUs announced that it had increased the minimum investment threshold of its Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) accounts from £100 to £10,000.
The peer-to-peer property lending platform made the change at the end of January in response to tightening regulation which has increased the cost of onboarding new lenders.
“The new financial promotion disclaimers which came out at the end of January, basically put property-backed secured lending in the same high-risk categorisation as super-high-risk equity crowdfunding, which is disproportionate,” said JustUs chief executive Lee Birkett, at the time.
“It’s not worth the onboarding and ongoing monitoring of each lender unless they’ve got £10,000 invested, it’s such a shame.”
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