Ahead of the U.K. budget announcement on Wednesday, Brian Norton, the CEO of Europe’s largest private student lending startup, Future Finance, called on the government to extend public subsidies to fintech businesses.
In an interview on Bloomberg’s morning TV show “Countdown” Monday, Norton said he is a big fan of the British government’s student support programs but noted that they only account for £10 billion (€12.9 billion) a year against the total of £50 billion in annual education spending.
“In our business, there is something called the professional career development loan where the government subsidizes bank lending,” Norton said. “Opening those sorts of opportunities to online lenders like ourselves would be very helpful in propelling growth away from the core banks.”
Future Finance has just completed a round of fundraising and raised £119 million from firms, including QED Investors and Blackstone Group, to expand the business and fund new loans. “We are balance sheet lenders; what we need is capital,” Norton said.
The firm lends to each student between £2,500 to £49,000 a year and already has a credit line in place with Goldman Sachs. The CEO confirmed to Bloomberg TV that of the newly raised capital, £100 million will supplement the existing credit facility, enabling more students in the U.K. to access higher education.
Meanwhile:
The lawman catches up with former Anglo Irish Bank CEO:
David Drumm was extradited Monday from the U.S. to Ireland, where he was promptly charged with 33 counts of financial fraud for his role in the failure of the Irish lender which was nationalized in 2009. In a crisis that ended its “Celtic tiger” boom, Ireland spent an equivalent of 15 percent of its GDP or €30 billion to clean up the bank.
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