LendInvest has created an online mortgage origination and loan trading platform which aims to offer investors high returns while opening up the credit markets to borrowers.

So far, deals worth £3.5m have been arranged via the platform. Loans may be secured against either residential or commercial property.

Co-founder, Christian Faes said LendInvest would be able to make some of the most sophisticated fraud detection and underwriting processes in the market available to investors: “Over the course of the last year we have quietly been working behind the scenes, building our online platform, and working with a select group of investors that have now already traded a number of loans on the system.”

On Monday, Mortgage Solutions held a head-to-head on the benefits of peer-to-peer lending in the mortgage market.

Rebuildingsociety communications manager Nick Moules said: “Mortgages is a market that has the potential to be funded by peer-to-peer.

Sponsored

EPC planning: act now or risk the rush later

Sponsored by BM Solutions

“Taking property as security in loans will certainly appeal to more risk-averse individual lenders, but returns will be lower than those who already lend to businesses in the peer-to-peer market.”

However, ASC Finance for Business managing director Henry Ejdelbaum questioned the ability of social lenders to assess risk in a way that adequately protected investors.