SocietyOne launches into secured loan market

Australian peer-to-peer lending platform SocietyOne has launched into the secured loan market after passing its AUS$1bn (£558.8m) lending milestone last month.

The new product will enable borrowers to be able to access larger loans of up to $70,000 at a cheaper rate with loan terms of two, three, five or seven years, by putting up security like a vehicle.

The launch follows a successful pilot for the product at the end of 2020 and the platform achieving a record month of originations in December.

“We’re hitting the ground running in 2021 and building on our strong growth momentum by diversifying our product offering through a range of new product launches and improvements to the customer experience,” Mark Jones, chief executive of SocietyOne told Australian Broker.

“With the launch of a secured loan product, we’re able to increase accessibility and flexibility for our customers, while maintaining our high credit quality for our investors.

“This level of flexibility is one of the ways that SocietyOne continuously seeks out solutions for the benefit of its borrowers and investors.”

SocietyOne will open up its secured personal loans directly to consumers via its website. To date, it has done all its lending through its broker channel.

The Australian lending market has been busy of late.

In December, Australian P2P lending platform Plenti, which previously used the RateSetter branding, secured a AUS$100m warehouse facility to grow its renewable energy and personal loans offering.

In November, small- and medium-sized enterprise finance aggregator Swoop said it was expanding into Australia and consumer lender Harmoney, which exited the P2P space earlier in 2020, raised AUS$92.5m from an initial public offering to increase lending in Australia and New Zealand.