The 2016 Year in Review
Happy birthday to us! Here's an overview of some of our proudest moments so far.
Today marks the 2nd anniversary of Plenti officially launching in Australia.
As we stated in our first blog post, Plenti^ (then known as RateSetter) launched in Australia with a grand ambition: to create a more efficient financial system which better serves its customers.
We are delighted with our progress. Over the last two years, we have provided thousands of investors with attractive returns, and we have succeeded in reducing the cost of borrowing for creditworthy Australian consumers. We have helped to shift control away from institutions back to the consumer, by empowering investors and borrowers to decide the fair level for interest rates on our open and transparent loan marketplace.
The first two years have been full of important milestones, both big and small, but for us, the following achievements stand out:
- Paying our investors every cent of principal and interest due, with total interest paid amounting to over $2.9m
- Signing up over 4,850 everyday retail and SMSF investors
- Achieving exponential growth, with our first $1m funded in February 2015, passing $10m in September 2015 and $50m in July 2016, with each milestone achieved in record time for Australian consumer lending
- Introducing Carsales.com and Stratton as strong and supportive shareholders and commercial partners in March 2014
- Being awarded Canstar’s coveted 5-star award for outstanding value for our unsecured personal loans two years in a row
- Our CEO Daniel Foggo being named FinTech Leader of the Year and Glenn Riddell being named CTO/CIO of the Year at the inaugural FinTech Australia awards in June 2016, a great reflection on the strength and growth of Plenti
A key part of our plan to provide consumers with a better value alternative to traditional institutions has been to drive greater innovation in Australian financial services. In just two years we’ve achieved a number of ‘firsts’ for the Australian market, including:
- Opening up consumer lending to retail investors, being the first platform to gain a consumer lending financial services licence from ASIC
- Being the first lender to allow borrowers to view an indicative loan interest rate based on their credit file, but without negatively impacting their credit score
- Being the first lender to release its loan book publicly, allowing investors and regulators to fully understand its business activities and credit performance
- Being the first lender to share comprehensive credit data with other lenders, and hence helping to introduce greater competition to our loan markets
We’ve also continued Plenti's proud tradition as a pioneer, introducing to Australia a number of innovations, including:
- Being the only lending platform to allow investors to participate with as little as $10, and for as short a term as one month
- Launching as the first and remaining the only lender to have a Provision Fund to help protect investors from defaults, helping to make lending simpler and safer for investors
- Launching the only lending marketplace that allows investors to specify any rate of return they wish to receive
- Being the only consumer lender to facilitate loans to both consumers and Australian businesses
We remain excited about driving innovation and delivering fairer outcomes for Australian consumers and businesses. We’re also excited about our plans for growth ahead.
With our gratitude for your support.
The Plenti team
