DirectMoney faces a funding bottleneck
Marketplace lender DirectMoney wrote A$7.8 million of loans in its first year of operation at a weighted average interest rate of 13.6 per cent.The company issued an update yesterday, saying it settled $1.4 million in loans in the September quarter and $7.8 million since it launched last October.It has provided finance for 430 borrowers. No current loans have repayments more than 30 days past due.DirectMoney is distributing loans through four finance brokers. One curious item in the disclosure was that the company was updating the product disclosure statement for its DirectMoney Personal Loan Fund, which was launched only a few months ago.Unlike some marketplace lenders, which allow lenders to select individual loans, DirectMoney pools retail investor money in a managed fund.The company has a loan warehouse arrangement, with loans on balance sheet initially. The Personal Loan Fund purchases those loans.DirectMoney seeded the fund with $500,000 and at September 30 it held equitable interests in unsecured personal loans worth $600,000. In other words, the fund has attracted only $100,000 from investors since it was launched and now it is off the market while it is being revised.Without access to investors' funds the company faces a serious bottleneck. It said it would make a revised prospectus available as soon as possible.