Products Peer-to-peer lending Headquarters London, United Kingdom Type of business Private | Website www.wellesley.co.uk Founded 2013 | |
 | ||
Industry Personal finance, peer-to-peer lending, Alternative Finance Key people Graham Wellesley , CEO and co-founder Key person Graham Wellesley, 8th Earl Cowley Profiles | ||
Wellesley & Co is a peer-to-peer lender headquartered in London, UK. Founded in November 2013, Wellesley provides asset-backed loans secured on residential property. It is named after co-founder Graham Wellesley, who was previously Chief Executive of IFX and Finspreads. Wellesley differs from other peer-to-peer lending platforms in that it uses its own money to fund every loan agreed with its borrowers.
Contents
Overview
Wellesley allows individuals to lend money directly to the UK’s small and medium-sized housebuilders, as well as property developers. On 2 April 2014, Wellesley announced that it had made an £8.3m loan, the largest to be made on a peer-to-peer platform at that time. The loan, a bridging loan, is backed by a range of 27 properties in several south London boroughs and Essex.
As part of an auto-matching process, lenders' funds are matched to all loans on a volume weighted basis, which gives investors a proportionate amount of each loan. The process runs once a week in order to match lenders to every single loan.
In July 2014, Wellesley & Co. announced the launch of the Wellesley Mini-Bond, which allows Bondholders to invest their money directly to Wellesley Finance Plc in turn for a fixed interest rate that is paid every six months. As and when the Wellesley Mini-Bond has matured, the full amount of a lenders investment will be repaid. The Mini-Bond offered by Wellesley is only available to UK-Based individuals, companies, charities and trusts. Another bond offered by Wellesley & Co, is The Wellesley Listed Bond, which again is issued by Wellesley Finance Plc.
Industry Awards
In 2014, Wellesley won an award for being the fastest growing platform of the year out of a number of platforms surveyed by AltFi, an online alternative finance publication. In 2015, financial news site Bridging and Commercial awarded Wellesley 'P2P Lender of the Year'.