cusp of becoming mainstream .” Andy Baldwin , EY ’ s Managing Partner of Europe , Middle East , India and Africa Financial Services , said : “ To date there has been little hard data about the extent of the industry across Europe . This report shows that , while it is still considerably smaller than the industry in the UK , alternative finance on the continent cannot be ignored .
“ The UK market ’ s success has in part been driven by investors ’ search for yield after the Bank of England ’ s QE program , so it will be interesting to see if the EU ’ s recent QE program sparks increased activity in Europe .
For me some of the most interesting metrics are the rate of adoption in certain markets and models . For example peer-to-peer business lending grew at more than 270 percent in mainland Europe this year , and Estonia and Sweden have some of the highest volumes per capita . The whole financial services industry should be watching this space with growing interest and this study will provide a valuable benchmark against which to measure future developments .”
The UK is by far the largest European country for alternative finance , at € 2.34 billion (£ 1.78 billion ) in 2014 , followed
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