Using Person to Person Lending Platforms for Rural Development

Rural and regional based businesses and communities around Australia often face the dilemma of how and where to raise funds for local development projects. The number of rural focused lenders whilst highly specialised is small and usually focused on mainstream farming (e.g. financing for farm equipment purchases). Rural projects are often inhibited from developing due to a number of factors which include – the tyranny of distance, lack of knowledge of financial service providers, poor planning skills and low visibility in metro cities.

P2P Lending Platforms a Tool for Rural Australia

If you considering starting a rural based project and require funding you may consider a peer to peer or person to person lending platform as an ideal way to market your project and gain the required funding. By creating a loan listing and putting as much information about the project, a budget and the likely future cashflows you are telling interested investors upfront the key features of the project and many lenders may decide that the risk profile is no greater than say a low-credit score borrower.

Also by listing the required funds on a P2P loan site you are able to access a much larger market (all of Australia) than say just your local town and region. In addition there are often many interested parties willing to lend against a project that has social importance than you realise however they may often just be hard to find.

Another feature of P2p loans is that they are an online loan and service conducted in real-time that allows you to potentially access the funding within 1-2 weeks. If you are not successful first time you will be able to see the level of interest and also gauge the key concerns of potential investors from the questions they ask you online.

How to Start Using P2P Loan Site for Your Project

Planning and information is the key to a successful loan listing and you should consider getting as many details on the following as possible:

• Full description of the project and its merits
• An honest assessment of the risk and how you propose to manage them
• A 1-5 year cashflow forecast
• A summary of your skills and experience

By providing a lot of information lenders are more likely to see you as a credible project manager and to bid reasonable rates against your project.

Good luck with your project and hopefully P2P lending and borrowing will be able to help you in 2008!