ArchOver prepares to launch £2m of loans this month

ArchOver has a “strong pipeline” of business loans worth over £2m that should go live on the peer-to-peer lending platform in April, after deals were delayed last month.

Chief operating officer Ian Anderson said that a large proportion of these loans that will soon be added onto the platform are for management buyouts that have been delayed for reasons outside ArchOver’s control, such as the companies finalising agreements and legal contracts.

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“We have a very strong pipeline which is encouraging, £2m is credit approved and another million is being finalised for sign off this week,” he told Peer2Peer Finance News.

“A lot of this lending is around acquisition of successful businesses, or management buyouts where the founder(s) is retiring. These have been popular for lenders, the trouble is they never go to the timeframe everyone wants.

“The problem with these sorts of deals is there is often delays in finalising the deals outside our control i.e. share purchase agreements, regulatory approval, legals, finalising agreements – until we have the final ‘go live’ we can’t put them on the platform.

“These are delayed, we have about over £2m of approved loans ready to go to the platform and it’s just then down to the borrower to decide to push them live onto the platform, but they won’t want to until everything is ready. We’re waiting for companies to finalise what they’re doing.”

Anderson said the platform has “a reasonable amount of loans” set to be deployed this month.

“It looks like we should have a busy April and May,” he added.

At the end of March, ArchOver strengthened its appropriateness test, adding some additional questions to the onboarding process to try and spot naïve investors.