About

Team size: Three legal and three compliance

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last year?

We managed to close our second securitisation (of £285m UK prime buy to let mortgages) two days into first lockdown; just as the Covid-19 pandemic closed the securitisation market and when market volatility was through the roof. This was strategically important for the business as it provided us with the funding we needed to maintain our buy-to-let lending levels through the pandemic despite the ongoing fallout in the broader economy. Closing and settling such a substantial transaction in such an unprecedented and unusual environment was a huge achievement for both the legal team and the business. This transaction is currently shortlisted for Global Capital’s ‘RMBS deal of the year’.

LendInvest remains the only UK fintech platform to have securitised its own assets. This transaction came only nine months after we entered the RMBS market with its first securitisation of £259m BTL loans, Mortimer BTL 2019-1. We received an AAA (sf) rating (for 85% of the pool) from Fitch and S&P Global Ratings, the global credit rating agencies.

Has WFH inspired any innovation in terms of the way you or your team work? Are there any standout products or tech you now use that you never did before?

As a long-established, technology-driven company operating with cloud-based infrastructure, we were fully capable of working remotely and were able to make this transition relatively seamlessly. This allowed us to remain ‘open for business’ throughout lockdown, while many other lenders in our space were forced to shut up shop and stop lending.

The larger challenge was working with some of our third-party service providers who were less technology driven, so most of our efforts were initially focussed there. Smaller logistical matters (like legal requirements for wet ink signature) were assessed and legal solutions found quickly to enable the business to continue lending.

What were the main difficulties your company faced during the initial and subsequent lockdowns, and how did you respond to these?

Looking back to the first lockdown, we were operating in crisis mode. We moved quickly, with the executive committee meeting first thing each morning to allow for informed and efficient decision making by the leadership team, as the daily changes and developments came in.

The housing market undeniably suffered setbacks as a result of lockdown. With valuers unable to access properties for a prolonged period, the business worked quickly to develop a Desktop Valuation product, becoming one of the first specialist lenders to do so.

We not only took a fresh approach to developing new products but supported our customers by making core improvements to our internal processes and launching new communications initiatives to keep our brokers and borrowers up to date with our latest product updates.

Throughout the summer we kicked off a new product webinar series, launched broker Slack integrations and prioritised tech projects that would ensure we remained available and ready to lend when our customers needed us.

We announced a record breaking Q3 for signed bridging applications, our highest quarter to date and by Q4 we were receiving record breaking levels of buy to let applications. Signed bridging applications were up 65% year-on-year for Q3 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Keeping the borrower front of mind through the crisis and adapting to the market as it responds to new restrictions and forecasts has been pivotal over the last year. We have witnessed time and time again the benefit of our technology platform with smart integrations such as Open Banking, online ID verification through Jumio and Onfido, and Docusign and Stripe for payments.

Our strong tech partnerships and proprietary technology provide a superior experience for our borrowers, and set us head and shoulders above our competition in the lending space.

We were delighted to become a CBILS accredited lender in 2020 and are now better able to support our borrowers and brokers with CBILS products.

After a turbulent year, it was hugely rewarding to report a strong set of interim financial results (£6.2m EBITDA (244% increase vs six month period to 30 September 2019) & £1,386.2m gross loans & advances (27% increase vs six month period to 30 September 2019)) and in the same month, see LendInvest win Buy-to-Let Lender of the Year at the NACFB awards for the second consecutive year and take home Property Finance Platform of the year at the 2020 AltFi awards.

Even in the best-case scenario, Covid-19 is likely to have far-reaching ramifications. How are you safeguarding the long-term health of the business?

We are continually and closely monitoring the impact of the pandemic on our business, including from business continuity, operational risk and infrastructure, disruption impact, use of third party service providers and communications perspectives. This is achieved through our governance structure which I previously put in place to ensure the correct decision makers have the information they need to make the relevant decisions. I carry out the annual governance review to ensure this decision making process and flow of information is running effectively.