Lender secures NAB-backed warehouse facility

SocietyOne has established a $100-million warehouse facility with National Australia Bank (NAB), scalable up to $200 million.

The warehouse facility adds to the recently finalised $15-million equity raise from existing investors, who reportedly include high-net-worth individuals, community banks, super funds, insurance companies and credit funds, according to SocietyOne.

The marketplace lender’s CEO, Mark Jones, said the diversified investment strategy would support the expected growth of the company throughout 2020.

Mr Jones said the capital raised by existing investors would be utilised to introduce new products and services to customers, while the warehouse facility would allow the company to improve funding diversity, increase profitability and remain competitive in the lending market.

“As a result of [the] unwavering commitment to act and grow in line with the best interests of our customers, we have now reached a size and scale at which diversity of funding is crucial to meet the growing demand for our loans every month,” Mr Jones said.

“The facility shores up SocietyOne’s ability to grow in 2020 and continue to provide a great experience and better value for our customers now, and for many years to follow,” he concluded.

Executive changes, potential float

The personal loan provider has recently made a series of significant appointments, including welcoming Westpac’s former senior head of finance, consumer bank, and previous head of finance for commercial banking, Virginia Marshall, as its new chief financial officer.

More recently, the marketplace lender hired former Citibank senior marketing executive and business strategist Melissa Cicero as its new chief marketing officer.

These executive changes follow on from SocietyOne’s full-year results for 2019, which showed that loan originations were up 51 per cent year-on-year to $234 million, bringing the lender’s loan book to more than $300 million – and culmulative lending nearing the $1-billion mark.

The lender revealed that it has recently surpassed $800 million in total loan originations and is writing between $20-$25 million of new loans a month.

Speculation has been mounting that an initial public offering (IPO) may be on the cards for the P2P lender later this year, following a delay to its expected listing last year.

On this matter, a representative of SocietyOne told The Adviser the company is “considering options such as an IPO” in 2020.

[Related: Former Citibank exec joins P2P lender]