Nesta, an UK-based innovation charity with the mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life, together with Cambridge University, has recently published an in depth study on the British alternative finance sector. The results are very interesting, highlighting the outstanding growth of this innovative sector, as we report below.
£84 million: predicted market size of equity crowdfunding in 2014, with an average investment of £1000. If the estimates are correct, the market almost tripled its size compared to last year. One of the key factor behind this rapid growth may have been the ad hoc regulation put in place by the British regulator last April, which has been also heavily criticized by some who thought that the limit posed on retail investors (10% of their net investable assets) was too strict. According to Nesta, only 38% of the investors were professional investors or high net worth individuals.
£749 million: predicted market size of peer-to-peer business lending in 2014. This is the largest crowdfunding market in the UK and if ISAs for P2P lending are enacted, it will probably grow more and even faster. The average loan size is of £73,222 and 63% of the business which received one saw their profits increasing afterwards. A less encouraging fact is that this is mainly a male market: 83% of investors are gentlemen, which reminds us of the great gender difference in the early stage investing sector.
£547 million: predicted market size of peer-to-peer consumer lending in 2014, almost the double compared to last year. While lenders are primarily motivated by the interest rates, for borrowers there must be something more to it: more than an half of the borrowers were offered a loan from a bank, but decided to go with P2P lending.
Read the full post on Crowd Valley’s Blog: http://www.crowdvalley.com/news/the-incredible-numbers-of-uks-alternative-finance-market
dealindex.wordpress.com 