EasyMoney

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E-Money Capital Ltd
easyMoney
Formerly
  • Blue Sky Capital Limited (2003–2004)
  • Einstein Asset Management (UK) Limited (2004–2006)
  • Network Einstein (UK) Limited (2006–2008)
  • G I G Capital Limited (2008–2012)
  • De Candole Fry Limited (2012–2016) [1]
Company type Private limited company
Industry Banking, Financial services
Founded21 August 2001
Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Headquarters London, United Kingdom [2]
Services Retail banking
SME banking
OwnerAndrew De Candole
Website easymoney.com

E-Money Capital Ltd, trading as easyMoney, is a financial intermediary services brand in the United Kingdom established in 2001 as a division of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup [3] and since 2018 has been owned by Andrew De Candole. [4] [5]

Contents

History

On 21 August 2001 the credit card company easyMoney was set up by easyGroup with Accucard (now part of Lloyds Bank), which was expanded on 14 February 2005 with the announcement that unbundled car insurance products provided by Zurich would be sold later in the year as easyMoney Insurance. In April 2006, easyGroup linked with Moneysupermarket.com to provide a financial product comparison website. [6] This coincided with the withdrawal of the easyMoney credit card.

In February 2018, easyMoney was relaunched under new ownership by the property developer Andrew De Candole as a peer-to-peer lending company, as a result of taking over the property lending business Tower Bridging, built by industry professional Jason Ferrando. [7] It started providing savers with an option to earn higher interest than the high street banks by lending their money to property professionals. This followed the UK government's move in April 2016 to allow peer-to-peer lending products to be held in a new tax-free Individual Savings Account (ISA) wrapper called an "Innovative Finance ISA". [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

easyMoney decided to stay open to retail investors during the COVID-19 pandemic, which its head of lending, Jason Ferrando, later described as "the best thing". [14] Accordingly, in May 2021, easyMoney began offering 3.67% interest on a minimum investment of £100, whilst it offered 8% interest on a minimum investment of £1 million. [7]

easyMoney revealed in February 2022 that it had lent more than £150 million over four years and had returned £10 million in interest to investors since the platform opened in February 2018. [15] In May 2022, easyMoney confirmed that it had doubled its profits and revenues between 2020 and 2021, the second year in a row it had been in profit. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

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EasyJet plc is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airlines EasyJet UK, EasyJet Switzerland, and EasyJet Europe. EasyJet plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stelios Haji-Ioannou</span> Greek-Cypriot businessman (born 1967)

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easyCar is a British-based car brokerage firm. It was founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 2000 and formerly undertook car rental services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of easyGroup.

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Peer-to-peer lending, also abbreviated as P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns compared to savings and investment products offered by banks, while borrowers can borrow money at lower interest rates, even after the P2P lending company has taken a fee for providing the match-making platform and credit checking the borrower. There is the risk of the borrower defaulting on the loans taken out from peer-lending websites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EasyGroup</span> British multinational branded venture capital conglomerate

EasyGroup Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded in 1998 and privately owned by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. It is headquartered in London, UK.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assetz Capital</span>

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LendingCrowd is an online peer-to-peer lending company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. As the first Scottish based crowdlending firm, LendingCrowd has created a platform that enables investors to support small and medium-sized businesses by lending personal capital through small loans whilst earning a monthly interest payment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk2Folk</span>

FOLK2FOLK is a Marketplace lending platform (MPL) specializing in secured lending for business owners across the rural and regional parts of the UK. It matches businesses looking for capital with individual (retail) and institutional investors who receive a fixed interest rate from 7.5% p.a. secured against UK land or property. Investors receive the same interest rate that the Borrower pays, with FOLK2FOLK making its profit from an arrangement fee and annual renewal fee charged to Borrowers.

LandlordInvest is a peer-to-peer lending platform that enables people to invest in residential, commercial, and semi-commercial bridging and development loans. The platform's target audiences are professional property investors and landlords. It was the first residential property-backed Innovative Finance ISA made available to UK savers.

References

  1. "E-MONEY CAPITAL LTD overview". Companies House . 8 August 2003. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
  2. "E-MONEY CAPITAL LTD overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk.
  3. "easyMoney - P2P Property loans and investment - Peer to peer lending". NextFin. 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  4. "E-MONEY CAPITAL LTD overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". Companies House. 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  5. Oscar Williams-Grut (24 February 2018). "Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou Gets Into Fintech With EasyMoney". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  6. Gavin Richardson (13 April 2006). "news : easyMoney expands". easy.com. Archived from the original on 30 December 2010. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  7. 1 2 Omar Faridi (28 May 2021). "UK based Investment Platform easyMoney Is Reportedly Offering 8% and Over on £1M+ Investments". Crowdfund Insider. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  8. Rupert Jones (24 February 2018). "Stelios Haji-Ioannou's new 'easyIsa' offers a 4% return". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  9. Noor Zainab Hussain (24 February 2018). "Budget airline pioneer Stelios to take on big banks with easyMoney". Reuters. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  10. Emily Perryman (24 February 2018). "EasyMoney launches Innovative Finance ISA". Peer2Peer Finance News. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  11. "easyMoney launches in UK". easyGroup. 26 February 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  12. Calum Parry (26 February 2018). "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's EasyMoney". FinTech Futures. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  13. Anna Jordan (4 April 2018). "easyMoney IFISA: how do its 4% and 7.28% Innovative Finance ISAs compare?". lovemoney.com. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  14. Kathryn Gaw (3 February 2022). "EasyMoney: Retail investors were "best thing" during pandemic". Peer2Peer Finance News. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  15. "EasyMoney pays back £10m of interest to investors". Peer2Peer Finance News. 10 February 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  16. Kathryn Gaw (26 May 2022). "EasyMoney doubles profits and revenues". Peer2Peer Finance News. Retrieved 8 June 2022.