EstateGuru sees loan volumes rise in May in line with increased City funding
Estateguru saw its lending volumes rise to €8.2m (£7m) in May from €7m in April, as it reported increased investment from institutions to support its growth.
The European peer-to-peer property lending platform said it is concentrating on the Baltic region and Finland, with Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia seeing volume sales of €4m, €1.4m and €1.9m respectively last month. €800,000 was lent out in Finland.
“We are seeing an increase in investment from institutional investors, to further support growth,” the firm said in a blog post on its website.
As Peer2Peer Finance News previously reported, Estateguru secured a new funding line with Czech investment bank J&T Banka in March this year, to fund real estate-backed loans in the Baltics. The platform has a number of institutional partners, including Varengold Bank.
Read more: Estateguru volumes and returns recover in March
Estateguru also gave an update regarding a long-term defaulted loan in Latvia, where the auction was successful, but the €100,000 of funds were held up due to a legal dispute. After settlement with the borrower, the funds were then recovered.
Estateguru said the main focus of the risk and legal department is the recoveries in Germany, Finland and Lithuania.
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The platform has taken a number of steps to improve credit quality, including higher valuation standards, more emphasis on repayment ability and borrower background, and the integration of Moody’s ratings into its models. It also said that there has been a shift in the operations team’s focus to more proactive late loan management.
In April, Estateguru reported that it had passed its €700m lending milestone in the first quarter of this year, after completing 178 projects with a loan volume of €23m.
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