MoneyMe shareholders have approved an issue of share to SocietyOne shareholders as consideration for acquisition of their business, giving the green light to the merger of the two consumer finance companies.

In a deal worth A$132 million in scrip, plus an additional cash payment of up to $9.7 million, MoneyMe will increase its receivables by more than 70 per cent. 

When the deal was announced in November MoneyMe had receivables of $542 million and SocietyOne $392 million. According to a January 31 update, MoneyMe’s receivables book is now worth $590 million.

MoneyMe said it expects to increase revenue by around 60 per cent to $146 million. 

It said benefits of the deal include a better experience for SocietyOne customers as they move onto the MoneyMe platform and an opportunity to market MoneyMe’s more extensive product range to SocietyOne’s “high quality, differentiated” customer base.

It also hopes its bigger receivables book will accelerate its planned securitisation program, which will reduce funding costs.

MoneyMe chief executive Clayton Howes said in a statement that the merged group would continue to develop its partnership with Westpac. In February last year SocietyOne signed up to Westpac’s banking-as-a-service platform, in a move to broaden its product range.

Howes said the merged group’s distribution will include direct digital, direct traditional, broker, agent and dealer.

SocietyOne entered the market in 2014 as a pioneer in the emerging peer-to-peer lending market. Its peer-to-peer lending proposition never really got off the ground and it relied on wholesale funding.

Its owners have titillated the financial press with rumours of an IPO over the years but in the end opted for a trade sale.