Perenna, the London based fintech, has completed its latest funding round raising $10 million as part of its plans to obtain a banking licence and bring its technology-centric lending proposition of fixed for life mortgages to the UK housing market in summer 2021. The latest investment in Perenna has been raised from a group of investors including former Deutsche Bank Head of Structured Product Syndicate and MD Kevin Flaherty, Capdesk founder Casper Arboll, Star Capital managing partner Tony Mallin MBE, and other notable city investors and family offices.

Perenna is building a mortgage lender which will use long-term covered bonds to finance its products, taking inspiration from the Danish mortgage model. This innovative approach to lending in the UK means that Perenna will be able to issue 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at highly competitive rates, while giving customers the flexibility to port their mortgage should they want to move and offering early repayment charges that only cover the first 5-years of the product. 

Perenna’s products will be available to borrowers ranging from first-time buyers, who can take out a mortgage with as little as a 5% deposit, to those who want to move or take out a mortgage in later life. The company is investing heavily in building its proposition around technology to provide a better customer experience for UK borrowers.

Britain’s mortgage market currently has around £1.5 trillion in outstanding loans. Perenna believes that its radically different approach to mortgage lending could help many first time buyers onto the housing ladder and release equity from existing homeowners. This could increase the UK mortgage market by around £500 billion over the next 5 years, fixing the broken housing market and boost GDP.

Arjan Verbeek, CEO and Co-Founder of Perenna, said: “For too long real and meaningful innovation in the UK mortgage market has been limited. This hasn’t just left Britain with a sector that has poor product offerings for customers. In some cases, borrowers have been excluded from the housing market altogether, from first-time buyers struggling to meet affordability criteria, to older homeowners who want to borrow but are restricted simply because of their age.

“This latest investment is a powerful vote of confidence from a high quality investor consortium in Perenna’s proposition. It puts us on target to launch our innovative range of long-term fixed-rate products, which we really believe could transform the UK mortgage market for consumers, allowing them to borrow what they can actually afford and creating a nation of happy homeowners.”

Former Deutsche Bank Head of Structured Product Syndicate and MD, Kevin Flaherty said: “Perenna’s proposition is truly innovative and will transform mortgages in the UK from a product, funding and technology perspective.”