New firm to challenge UKs ‘outdated’ pawnbroking industry

A new online peer-to-peer lending platform has launched in an effort to challenge what it describes as the UKs ‘outdated’ pawn and secured lending industry. 

The startup, called Unbolted, lets consumers use their high value personal assets to access loans of up to £1m. Loans can be secured against anything from gold to fine art, antique cars to grand pianos, simply by uploading a picture of their item to Unbolted’s website.

The company says that valuation experts will offer loans against the items within three hours and, once the goods are received, consumers could have cash in their accounts within 30 minutes.

Rito Haldar, co-founder of Unbolted, said: “We set up [the company] because we want to challenge the way people can access credit through the outdated pawn industry and other secured lenders. We’ll do that by being transparent, offering fairer terms, cheaper rates and a convenient, easy-to-use online service that puts consumers firmly in control of their borrowing.

“At Unbolted, we use a peer-to-peer online model which strips out many costs and ensures our customers can benefit from lower rates than typical larger loan companies or pawnbrokers. For us, it’s about making short-term borrowing affordable and simple so we can help asset-rich but cash-poor individuals and business owners. We want to champion change in this industry.”

The startup has already had a wave of enquiries from new customers and is now offering rates of between 1.5% and 3% per month for loans taken out against luxury items. Typical lenders charge between 5% and 10% each month.