Two European Banks Provide U.K. Online Lender With $191 Million

(Bloomberg) -- Undeterred by the uncertainty around Brexit, a pair of banks from continental Europe have agreed to provide 135 million pounds ($191 million) in funding to MarketInvoice Ltd., the London-based online lender.

Banco BNI Europa, a Portuguese digital bank, will make 90 million pounds available for loans distributed via MarketInvoice’s website, the British company said in a statement Monday. The bank’s outlay comes on top of 73.3 million pounds it’s already provided the firm. Varengold Bank AG, a Hamburg-based lender, will put 45 million pounds on MarketInvoice’s platform, doubling an investment made in September.

MarketInvoice arranges working capital loans for thousands of British companies secured by money owed by debtors. Originating 2 billion pounds in loans since it was set up in 2010, the firm has emerged as one of the U.K.’s top so-called peer-to-peer lenders. Institutional investors have funded more than half the loans on its platform.

Britain’s online lending industry has showed few signs of stress since voters chose to quit the European Union in a referendum in June 2016. Last year, the biggest players originated almost 3 billion pounds in loans for consumers and companies, a 53 percent jump from 2016, according to the Peer to Peer Finance Association, a London trade group.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edward Robinson in London at edrobinson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elisa Martinuzzi at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net, Jon Menon, Andrew Blackman

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