HeavyFinance targets €5m green loan book by end of 2023

HeavyFinance expects its green loan book to reach more than €5m (£4.3m) by the end of the year, as it targets growth in sustainable finance.

The Lithuanian peer-to-peer lending platform, which supports farmers in five different European countries, has expanded from offering agricultural loans for things like land and equipment to “green loans”, which encourage eco-friendly farming.

The green loans, which were launched earlier this year, enable farmers to earn carbon credits based on their emissions, which can be sold to traders or other companies.

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Investors earn returns from the loan itself and the sale price of the carbon credit.

HeavyFinance closed a €3m fundraising round in March to help the platform expand its green loan offering.

Darius Verseckas, co-founder and chief marketing officer of HeavyFinance, revealed that the platform has already funded more than €2m of green loans and is targeting more than €5m by the end of 2023.

“We still have in mind that the project is quite new so we want to evaluate every step of the process,” Verseckas said.

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“This year is about working together with the farmers, explaining how sustainable products work and next year will be the time to reach a much bigger scale.

“Our green loans will become the biggest product in the long-term. There is a lot of meaning to it and it is basically our mission now with sustainable farming and helping the environment. A lot of capital is going into this area because of the urgency of it. We are also in talks with institutional capital providers who want to support this work.”

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