After the announcement that the tax free individual savings account (ISAs) will be extended to include peer- to-peer loans, the UK’s government launched a public consultation on the possibility to set up a separate ISA for people who want to lend out money through P2P portals. Last week on October 9th I took part in a roundtable discussion panel on Alternative Financing at the Invest in Photonics event in Bordeaux, France. The event is the primary European conference looking at investment across the photonics industry including applications in environment and energy efficiency, life sciences, consumer electronics, aerospace and transport, 3D printing and advanced manufacturing. I was joined by a sector-specialist serial entrepreneur and angel investor, a partner at a VC firm, B-to-V, with a focus on photonics, and a director of the French growth-stage SME stock exchange, Alternativa. A recent public consultation launched by UK’s government determined that P2P lending will have increasingly a central role in SMEs finance. In fact, starting later this year, British SMEs will have the chance to be linked up by banks to alternative finance providers - such as P2P lending portals -, when rejected by traditional credit providers. |
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