Credit Management September 2018

LSB to extend remit to P2P
DATE DIARY
THE 2018 Turner Lecture will be held on
24 October at the Strand Fleet and
Bell Suites at the Law Society London.
Speakers confirmed so far include:
Richard Mawrey QC to discuss the Pre-
Action Protocol (PAP); Ruth Duncan (past
president of the IPA) on the raft of new
rules in insolvency; Toby Riley-Smith QC
and Andrew Wilson HCEO on the
move to enlarge the HCEO remit. More
details will be published in future issues
of Credit Management.
THE Lending Standards Board (LSB) is to
extend its Standards of Lending Practice to
the peer-to-peer lending and invoice finance
sectors next year.
The voluntary standards came into effect
in 2017 for loans, credit cards, overdrafts
and charge cards. They aim to set a
benchmark for good lending practice in the
UK by outlining how firms should deal with
personal and small business customers.
The LSB has now extended the standards
to asset finance and commercial mortgage
products.
Dave Pickering, Chief Executive of the LSB,
says firms operating in the asset finance and
commercial mortgage sectors will be given
until the end of September to conduct a ‘gap
analysis’ showing which standards they
are currently meeting and which ones they
need to do further work on. The LSB will then
develop a guide providing examples of ‘what
good looks like’. The third roll-out of the
Standards of Lending Practice will be to P2P
lending and invoice finance products.
There are currently 20 LSB registered firms
that undergo a thorough risk assessment
review process that looks at their controls
and governance, and must ensure that the
LSB’s standards are built into firm-wide
policies. Newly-registered firms are given
help in achieving the standards.
lendingstandardsboard.org.uk
P2PFA accused of reducing
transparency
THE Peer-to-Peer Finance Association
(P2PFA) has been accused of reducing
transparency and hindering efforts to
enhance investor protection after changing
the rules governing how firms publish their
loanbooks.
Previously, members of the self-regulated
trade body were obliged to publish their full
loanbook, showing information about all the
loans on their platform.
Sunsequently, the P2PFA announced that
members had the option to either continue
to publish their entire loan book, or provide
a detailed breakdown of loans in their
overall loan book to enable a consumer to
be informed about the nature and number of
loans.
It claimed this would improve the
accessibility of performance data published
on member platform websites.
Shortly after the changes were introduced,
Funding Circle withdrew its downloadable
loanbook and stopped publishing loan
performance on a daily basis. The peer-topeer
business lender has launched a new
statistics page which will be updated every
three months, prompting certain parties to
claim a lack of transparency.
p2pfa.org.uk
It claimed this would
improve the accessibility
of performance data
published on member
platform websites.
Urica moment
UK-based invoice financing platform
Urica has gone into liquidation following
reports of a major fraud by a customer in
France. Urica was one recipient, alongside
Beechbrook Capital and MarketInvoice,
of £30 million of government funding
overseen by the then Business Secretary
Sir Vince Cable back in 2013.
urica.com
CICM IN BRIEF
THIS month’s briefing includes details
of the autumn classes, the best practice
webinars, the learning partnership
success for Equinix and Menzies
Distribution, and assessing your
membership eligibility against the new
criteria.
>UK DEBT HITS RECORD HIGH
AFTER years of rock-bottom interest rates,
the debts of the UK’s listed companies have
soared to a record high of £390.7 billion, easily
surpassing pre-crisis levels, according to the
new annual Link Asset Services ‘UK plc Debt
Monitor’. In the vice of the credit crunch,
companies had cut their borrowings by a fifth in
just two years. But since the low point in 2010/11
net debt has jumped by a staggering £159.6
billion. Moreover, most of this increase (£122.6
billion) has been in the last three years alone.
The oil sector has seen the fastest growth in net
debt, up 459 percent since 2008/9. In 2017/18, BP
and Royal Dutch Shell accounted for £1 in every
£7 of all UK plc’s net debts.
linkassetservices.com
The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.com / September 2018 / PAGE 8