Fintech

Former HSBC real estate boss Matthew Webster has joined the start-up promising an online ‘ecosystem’ for property trading and financing. Daniel Cunningham meets him

Entrepreneurs are harnessing technology to shape the future of the real estate industry.

To move with the times, banks’ real estate units are investing in technology, often in partnership with start-ups.

Technology disrupts, but is real estate keeping pace? In the first of a four-part report on fintech, Lauren Parr discovers online platforms may be only a tiny part of the property finance market, but they are important innovators.

Fintech will change real estate finance for the better, but lenders’ knowledge of the sector will remain essential.

Specialist UK debt provider LendInvest has reported 2017 lending volumes of £500 million (€563 million), up 33 percent on the previous year’s total.

Credit will provide a major access point into real estate for an increasing number of investors in the year ahead.

In backing niche debt provider LendInvest’s drive into the UK buy-to-let residential mortgage market, Citi has demonstrated the potential for an investment bank to access property lending via fintech.

An initiative announced this week aims to bring the worlds of crowdfunding and institutional real estate debt fund management closer together.

Venn Partners has teamed up with online real estate trading platform BrickVest in order to give the platform's users access to direct lending opportunities in the European commercial real estate market, Real Estate Capital's sister title, Private Debt Investor reported.