Abundance was the UK’s largest provider of Innovative Finance Isas during the last tax year.
The company claimed to have sold 1,436 innovative finance Isas, representing £10.5m of investment.
According to figures from HM Revenue & Customs investors put just £17m into innovative finance Isas during 2016 to 2017, the first year of their existence.
Meanwhile only 2,000 of these products were opened, compared to 2.5 million stocks and shares Isas and 8.4 million cash Isas.
This means Abundance, an ethical peer-to-peer investment platform, was responsible for selling 72 per cent of all innovative finance Isas and 62 per cent of all investments into them during 2016 to 2017.
Bruce Davis, co-founder and joint managing director of Abundance, said: “Our ‘total domination’ of the innovative finance Isa market will obviously be short lived now that Zopa has launched its product, but Abundance’s success does underline the public’s increasing desire to invest in assets with important environmental benefits as well as a financial return.
“Abundance investors have now pumped more than £50m into productive ‘win win’ investments, with most new money now going in via our Isa wrapper so the financial returns are tax free.”
Announced in the 2015 Summer Budget as a way to spark investment in small businesses, and launched last April, the innovative finance Isa allows savers to invest in peer-to-peer lending arrangements without tax on the gains.
But the new Isa got off to a slow start, with just 14 of these products available to investors a year after its launch, which led to some branding the innovative finance Isa a “damp squib”.
damian.fantato@ft.com
