Twino becomes regulated investment firm
Twino has become a regulated investment platform and is now preparing to expand its product offering to European retail investors.
The Latvia-headquartered peer-to-peer lending platform has secured an investment brokerage licence from the Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC).
In the next six months, it plans to shift to a new model, where investments in loans are packaged in the form of regulated financial instruments.
Twino said after an initial six months, the licence will allow it to expand its product offering to retail investors in the continent.
“After a transition period of six months, the licence will allow us to expand our product offering to European retail investors with trading of financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, contract for differences, exchange traded funds and many more,” said Roberts Lasovskis, chairperson of the board of Twino.
“Investors will be able to trade in part of these new securities already the first half of 2022.
“Licensing is a major step that promotes the transparency of our industry, offering more security to our platform’s investors.
“Acquiring the license has been time-consuming and challenging, but it’s absolutely worth it.
“It is very likely that the licensed companies will be the first choice for investors, and we can already see the growing investor interest, due to more security and the reimbursement guarantees that a regulated environment will provide.”
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Twino’s P2P platform was established in 2015 and serves nearly 50,000 retail investors from 30 countries in Europe.
Investors can fund consumer loans through the company’s subsidiaries in countries including Poland, Russia, Latvia and Vietnam.
Since its inception, investors have funded loans of more than €870m (£747m) and received more than €14m in interest.
In August, Twino reported a 30 per cent rise in revenue to €61.6m during 2020.
