PledgeMe to offer peer-to-peer lending

PledgeMe to offer peer-to-peer lending

New Zealand’s crowdfunding site PledgeMe has applied for a license from the Financial Markets Authority to offer peer-to-peer (P2P) lending.

“P2P, or debt crowdfunding as it’s also known, is another way for Kiwis to fund the things they care about,” PledgeMe CEO Anna Guenther said.

“PledgeMe’s debt crowdfunding platform will allow organisations — from companies to co-ops — to reach out to their crowds so they can fund bigger and better campaigns.

“An organisation’s crowd will be able to lend it money and the organisation will pay their crowd back with interest.

“It is a really simple way PledgeMe can further democratise what gets funded in New Zealand and offer an alternative to banks and selling shares.”

The new product is called PledgeMe.Debt and will be similar to PledgeMe’s existing products PledgeMe.Projects and PledgeMe.Equity.

“Organisations which can prove they can repay the loan will be able to offer a campaign on PledgeMe, their crowd will pledge, and if it is successful they’ll receive the money to go do the thing they said they were going to do,” Ms Guenther said.

“The difference with PledgeMe.Debt over our other types of crowdfunding is that organisations will pay back the money plus interest accrued and offer potentially other rewards to their lending crowd.

Ms Guenther said PledgeMe.Debt will differ from current peer-to-peer options because it will be a transparent campaign-led platform.

“Campaigners will be able to reach out directly to their crowds of friends, family, supporters, and customers,” Ms Guenther said.

“This means growth companies, social enterprises, not-for-profits, schools, co-operatives and communities — organisations wanting to involve those around them to achieve their purpose — will be able to borrow from their crowds.

“Unlike many peer-to-peer platforms, PledgeMe isn’t backed by a bank. This means borrowers will have a greater say over what, when and how they borrow and their crowds will be the decisive factor.

“This means the relationship campaigners will have with their lenders will be a lot different and, we believe, a lot more beneficial.”

PledgeMe expects debt crowdfunding campaigns will be live on the site by the middle of 2016.

For more about PledgeMe.Debt read our blog post about it: blog.pledgeme.co.nz/reinventing-debt/

ENDS

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