Plend - the social lending marketplace
by Startacus Admin
The lowdown on Plend, the London-based fintech that's on a mission to end the hardship caused by financial exclusion so people are not held back by their credit history
Financial exclusion is a growing issue where people are, as the term suggests, excluded from financial services and can access nothing more than a basic bank account. Financial insecurity affects more than 13 million people in the UK alone, with 5.8 million essentially invisible to the financial system, according to the Financial Inclusion Commission. This is a dangerous situation, ripe for cascading debt that people might never get out from under, and we need someone who will look out for those people. To perhaps even turn the current credit-score-based lending system on its head.
London-based fintech startup Plend is such a someone. They say that they are “on a mission to offer affordable loans to the 13 million people in the UK who are vulnerable to rip-off rates and financial hardship because of a flawed credit scoring system”.
Rather than using a credit score, the startup uses open banking to securely access an applicant’s bank account to understand their unique financial situation and their behaviour in order to make more insightful and informed lending decisions personalised to that person, rather than based on a credit score. As an investor, you can directly back individuals, lending through Plend to help make a difference to the lives of those 13 million people and be a part of making money lending a more ethical and humane endeavour.
In September, Plend announced that it had secured £700k in funding in a round led by Tomahawk, and Ascension, with participation from other investors such as Haatch and NBS Ventures. The consumer lending market is worth about £24 billion, and a startup moving into that space in order to bring a fairer system to people and stop them from being exploited or completely ignored is in a very good position to completely change the lending system.
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Published on: 23rd September 2021
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