easyMoney | |
Formerly |
|
Company type | Private limited company |
Industry | Banking, Financial services |
Founded | 21 August 2001 |
Founder | Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou |
Headquarters | London, England, UK [2] |
Services | Retail banking SME banking |
Owner | Andrew De Candole |
Website | easymoney |
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]
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]
An individual savings account is a class of retail investment arrangement available to residents of the United Kingdom. First introduced in 1999, the accounts have favourable tax status. Payments into the account are made from after-tax income, then the account is exempt from income tax and capital gains tax on the investment returns, and no tax is payable on money withdrawn from the scheme.
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.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur. Born into a wealthy ship-owning family, he is best known for founding the low-cost airline easyJet and the Stelmar shipping line with start-up funds provided by his father, Loucas. easyJet's foundation in 1995 marked the beginning of a series of ventures marketed under the "easy" brand, managed by easyGroup and chaired by Haji-Ioannou.
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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EasyGroup Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded in 1998. It is headquartered in London, United Kingdom and privately owned by Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
LendingClub is a financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. At its height, LendingClub was the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform. The company reported that $15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform up to December 31, 2015.
Zopa Bank Ltd. is a British online bank which offers deposit accounts, personal loans and credit cards. It began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005 and gained a full banking licence in 2020. The peer-to-peer side of its business closed in December 2021.
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Wellesley Group is an established alternative property investment platform, that issues Bond investments to the UK retail market. The Wellesley Group consists of Wellesley & Co., Wellesley Finance Plc and Wellesley Group Investors Ltd. Wellesley Group is named after co-founder Graham Wellesley, 8th Earl Cowley, who was previously Chief Executive of IFX and Finspreads.
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