Speaking exclusively to Bridging & Commercial, Brian Bartaby, CEO and founder of Proplend, said that he believed the company was very close to receiving FCA authorisation.

“Once we receive authorisation from the FCA, we will be three months away from launching the Innovative Finance Isa, which we hope will be in Q1 2017.

“It is difficult to work out how much more interest this will bring from investors, so we are building a pre-registration list of those who are interested in the Isa.”

Proplend was founded in 2014 and operates in the sub £5m commercial lending market where there is around £50bn of existing debt, which requires to be refinanced over the next three to five years.

The peer-to-peer lender operates a three-tranche system, which connects investors directly to borrowers with loans secured against UK income-producing commercial property.

“We provide investors [with] full transparency on every deal,” said Brian.

“After having met every borrower and visited every property, we produce our internal loan request document.

“In addition, investors have access to a copy of the valuation report and the legal report.

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“Our investors lend direct to borrowers, they actively choose which loans they want to invest in and then which part of the capital structure.”

The Proplend model allows investors to choose from three LTV-based tranche options.

Tranche A is for loans between 0-50% LTV with an average return of 6.44%, tranche B is between 51-65% LTV with returns of 7.73% and tranche C covers 66-75% LTVs with an average return of 9.39%.

Brian added that it had seen a rise in investors after dropping its minimum investment to £1,000 and said it currently had over 400 investors – individuals and institutions – signed up.

“We are one of only a few peer-to-peer lenders who received top ratings from online P2P platform rating agency 4^th Way.

“Our tranche A ratings scored highly, showing that investors will still earn positive returns even when going through a major recession or property crash.”

Brian concluded by speaking about the future and in particular the changing regulation in the peer-to-peer market.

“It has been a long haul going through the newly established regulatory process, but we welcome the FCA increasing its oversight of the P2P sector, it adds gravitas to the industry.

“It is an important recognition to clients, both borrowers and lenders.”