P2P lender Assetz Capital agrees £200m funding partnership with Aeon

UK peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and investing platform Assetz Capital has agreed a £200 million funding partnership with Aeon Investments.

Over the next three years, Aeon will pour the cash into SME loans arranged by Assetz Capital.

Assetz Capital CEO Stuart Law says: “The need for SME funding has never been more apparent, as an increasing number of traditional lenders aren’t offering financing solutions to SMEs.”

The funding will allow Assetz Capital to continue to diversify its commercial mortgage lending operations and provide mortgages worth up to £10 million on commercial investment properties.

Aeon Investments CEO Oumar Diallo adds: “We believe commercial real estate lending is a very attractive asset class, particularly in the current environment with depressed fixed-income market and falling equity prices.”

Assetz Capital has also partnered with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to deploy the regtech’s RiskNarrative platform across its business.

The platform leverages automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to provide know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities.

RiskNarrative will allow Assetz Capital to onboard users more efficiently, drawing from aggregated data sources to run KYC and AML checks.

Assetz Capital group head of change and lending operations Oliver Ward says the platform has reduced the time from application to funding for the firm’s customers, thanks to “operational and productivity improvements”.