[PFS] Breakfast Seminar: Alternative Finance

"Alternative Finance and why you need to understand the opportunities”

At a time when base rates have been at record low levels for over seven years and look likely to stay that way for several more you and your clients will be having trouble achieving inflation-beating returns. The alternative finance market provides opportunities to earn fixed interest rates between 5% and 12% after allowing for losses. So what are the risks?

Learning objectives - be able to:

• Understand how the internet is disrupting the finance industry
• Understand the fundamentals of crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending
• Recognise the importance of disintermediation and non-correlation
• Understand the regulatory response to date

Arrival at 7.45am for bacon sandwiches and coffee, with the talk beginning at 8.00am.

About the speaker, Kevin Caley - Founder and Chairman of ThinCats

Kevin began his career as an engineer in the midlands car industry and used his MBA to get into early stage venture capital. In 31 years he was responsible for over 400 investments seeking to change the way that small businesses were financed. A conversation with a business angel investor in November 2009 about the problems facing investors seeking a decent return on savings and the funding problems faced by SMEs caused by the banking crisis led to establishing the world’s first peer to peer platform specialising in secured business loans “ThinCats”. 6 years later Kevin has just launched www.communitychest.co.uk which brings tax relief on loans to social businesses; ‘peer to peer lending for good’.