Today we are two! This year has seen us continue to grow significantly, delivering a service that is driven by consumer demand. We have continued to supply our valued customers with investment solutions that are tailored to their needs.
In our second year, we have reached milestones, won awards, hosted lender drinks, delivered iPads and Kindles through promotions, upgraded our television advert, created innovative products and moved offices. The year has flown by and we have enjoyed learning more about our customers and working to ensure that we meet their expectations.
This year, we launched the innovative Wellesley Listed Bond which saw us be the first Peer-to-Peer lender in the UK to offer an ISA-eligible bond with tax-free returns on P2P lending. Please see here to listen to our CEO, Graham Wellesley, discussing the Wellesley Listed Bond on Bloomberg TV.
We have also expanded our lending greatly. From November last year, our level of lending has more than doubled. We are working hard with our investors to get Britain building again. We have also now lived through an election in which we saw a number of key announcements, including the landmark statement that Peer-to-Peer lending will be included within a new type of ISA wrapper (IFISA) from April next year. A range of other announcements also stemmed from the election, ranging from the Bank of England’s rate decision to upcoming policy resolutions – all of which bode well for Wellesley’s future and that of our investors.
Award season in our second year saw us win ‘P2P Lender of the Year Award’ at the Bridging and Commercial magazine awards, ‘Best Peer-to-Peer Lender’ at the Shares magazine awards and three placings at the AltFi Awards in the categories Property Lending Platform of the Year 2015, Most innovative Investment Product of the Year 2015 and Investor Protection Product of the Year 2015.
Our unique, asset-backed model continues to meet the needs of our customers but we feel it key always to maintain our fundamental principles, such as ensuring that we invest in each loan together with our investors and then taking the first loss if a borrower fails to meet their repayments, or making sure that our investors always have the maximum level of diversification of their funds at any given time through ‘auto-matching’. The above characteristics are all key features that will always be the backbone of our company. They’re vital when meeting our customers’ expectations and therefore maintaining our market-leading position.
We would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of our past and present investors. Your support and ongoing loyalty is very much appreciated. Here’s to another very successful year – we have exciting things planned!