Linked Finance, the well-known Irish peer-to-peer lending platform, has received full authorisation to trade in the UK from the Financial Conduct Authority. This is the culmination of a rigorous two-year application process.

Linked Finance’s authorisation in the UK will further its plans to enter the British lending market. The P2P industry in the UK has grown rapidly in the last decade, spurred on by a thick sheaf of regulations and a range of Government-backed initiatives to promote growth in the sector.

These initiatives include the introduction of the Innovative Finance ISA which offers lenders the opportunity to invest up to £20,000 on alternative finance platforms with tax-free returns. HM Government has also lent directly to small enterprises, deploying funds through the British Business Bank on platforms such as Funding Circle, Ratesetter and MarketInvoice. This has helped make the UK's P2P lending market the largest per capita market in the world. Platforms in the UK lent more than £1 billion in the first quarter of 2017, making it a very attractive market to such as Linked Finance.

Meanwhile, the Irish Department of Finance is consulting the public about bringing regulation to the P2P sector in that country. Linked Finance has always prided itself on meeting the "international best practices" that British regulation enforces on its charges. It believes that the FCA authorisation is proof of this.

Figures for the first quarter of 2017 show that the Irish platform increased its lending activity by more than 326% on the same period in 2016 and the platform has now facilitated more than €25 million (£21.6 million) in loans to Irish small or medium-sized enterprises.