How Kuflink investors drive changes at the platform
Kuflink has refreshed its range of investor products and services following feedback from its user base, in a “collaborative” approach which demonstrates the platform’s levels of engagement.
The platform has already raised its investor interest rates, but it is now planning a roll-out of other changes following a series of conversations with users.
“We are doing a refresh on our investor products,” says Kuflink’s head of products Paul Auger (pictured).
“We are trying to stay in tune with what is going on in the marketplace with other lenders and in the generic marketplace. We’re very grateful for our investors’ confidence in us.”
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As expected in the current climate, the majority of Kuflink’s investor feedback has revolved around interest rates.
“Interest rates are what investors are speaking about,” says Auger.
“We always look at making our rates as competitive as possible, whilst explaining to investors it’s still a business so by increasing their rates we could be working on reduced margins. It’s a balancing act, between what we pay to investors whilst ensuring our rates to borrowers are competitive.”
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Over the past few months, a number of peer-to-peer lending platforms have raised their investor returns in response to the rising base rate. Kuflink is no exception. The property lender is now listing gross annual interest equivalent rates at 9.73 per cent per annum, up from its previous target of 8.05 per cent per annum.*
Furthermore, the platform is expanding its outreach in key demographics.
“We are conscious that the investors of the future are the kids that are in their late teens and early 20s at the moment,” Auger says.
“The demographics of our average investor will change over time; we are noticing increased activity from younger people. There seems to be a noticeable shift towards the younger demographic, and they tend to have a different risk appetite.”
On a regular basis, Kuflink’s chief executive Narinder Khattoare chooses a few retail investors at random and calls them to ask what they want to see on the platform. The responses are fed back to the team and investor products are tweaked accordingly.
Crucially, Khattoare says he doesn’t mind hearing negative feedback, as it allows him to hear what investors really think and head off any future complaints.
“We do listen,” Khattoare says. “I want to make those changes. We don’t have the right solutions in-house all the time, but we can bring them in. That way it’s more of a collaborative approach.”
For example, recently several investors told Kuflink that they wanted to see joint accounts added to the platform. This function is something that Kuflink is currently considering.
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Investors are also interested in using their P2P funds as part of their pension plan. This has inspired Kuflink to look at new ways to manage pension funds on the platform. Kuflink is already offering self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), but it is not actively marketing this product. Khattoare says that this could be a “good market to go into”.
“We receive a lot of enquiries around pensions and the different mechanisms that people want to use to put money into our platform,” says Khattoare.
“We are looking at whether we could take institutional pension money which would be a whole different board game.”
Over the coming months, Kuflink also plans to alter the way in which returns are calculated when loans have been redeemed. This too is in response to investor feedback.
By listening to its customers and taking a pro-active approach to user feedback, Kuflink has been able to retain an extremely high customer satisfaction level, while continuing to innovate with new products and services that investors actually want.
* Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose money. This is a high-risk investment. You may not be able to access your money easily and are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.