On our path to full authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), we are making some changes to our lending model. Much like many other peer-to-peer platforms, we hold ‘Interim Permissions’ with the FCA and these changes will help us provide a better offering to our lenders.

 London, England – Relendex Limited announces that it has completed new round of financing from a group of international entrepreneurs. The proceeds will be used to strengthen the company’s balance sheet and to allow investments in new P2P products and services. Follow-on capital will also be provided to fund further development.

Following the completion of the funding round, Andre Dikouchine is appointed as an executive Director and Ivan Zhiznevskii is appointed as a non-executive Director of the Company. Also, Tom Quigley is appointed as the new non-executive Chairman of the Board of the Company.

There was a fascinating piece in the Weekend FT (see here though you’ll need a subscription to read it) about a fast-developing trend among developers to convert commercial premises, particularly office buildings, into homes in order to benefit from buoyant demand for residential property. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, vacant commercial space is contracting at the fastest pace since RICS started collecting the data in 1998. One in three surveyors in London and the south-east say that conversions of offices into homes are having a “substantial” impact on the market for commercial properties – hardly surprising when you consider that house prices are up 20% in the past year.

For investors in commercial property these are interesting times. Growing numbers of residential conversions will produce increased opportunity to fund developments, which can produce attractive returns for investors with greater risk appetite, while the gradual removal of commercial space that this process entails can be expected to have at least two side-effects. First, it should help to underpin both rental yields and demand for space among tenant and those seeking premises. Second, in the longer term it may well encourage commercial developments to meet demand among companies for suitable, modern space.

Is the UK’s commercial property market looking over-stretched? There’s been plenty of coverage suggesting that London is fully valued but what about the regions?

At a recent property gathering, one regional lender specialising in developer finance scoffed at the idea that the UK as a whole was over-valued. He could still lend on high-quality developments in Manchester, for example, that offered superb returns, he said.

We felt the NACFB Expo at the NEC in Birmingham recently was a resounding success. It was a great opportunity to put faces to the names of some of the brokers we have been building great relationships with and of course also to meet new brokers to enable us to spread the good word of Relendex. The event was very well attended and we were busy throughout the day. Thank you to all who took the time to talk to us and I hope we have been able to respond to your emails and phone calls if we were unable to get to you on the day.

There has been a veritable flood of enquiries since and we are busy working up new proposals so keep an eye on the Coming Soon section on the site. Further testament that the way forward is P2P!

Later this month, the Treasury is expected to launch its consultation on how P2P loans are to be included in the new £15,000-a-year tax-free Isa wrapper. The document has been a while coming and quite a few tricky issues remain to be resolved before retail investors will be able to start putting loan parts into their accounts alongside stocks, shares and cash.

One big question the consultation will not answer, however, is whether the UK’s 30,000- plus financial advisers are ready and willing to help clients who want to start investing in P2P loans to do so. Many advisers know relatively little about P2P and are likely to treat this relatively new asset class with caution, viewing it as unknown and therefore risky.