Andrew Holgate was speaking at the Finance Professional Conference at Manchester Central during a debate between the P2P and bridging industries.

During the debate, a number of questions were raised about the P2P industry, including that it had yet to go through a crisis.

Andrew said a platform was likely to get its model wrong and warned potential investors that they were not fully protected.

“One peer-to-peer lender will get this very very wrong, whether it’s in the UK or abroad.

“I sincerely hope that no one in the UK gets this model wrong, knowing most of the major players within the UK have got very strong people at the top.

“What I don’t say to my lenders is that you are 100% protected and you can’t give a guarantee that they won’t lose money.

“If you lend money, you will lose some along the way.

“It’s not my cash, it’s my retail investors’ cash and I must [be doing] everything I can do to make sure they are protected along the way – and I am sure that [it] is the same with others around the country.”

Matthew Tooth of LendInvest, who also took part in the debate, added: “There are lots of platforms that have launched and I would suspect that in five or 10 years’ time a lot of those platforms will have gone to the wall, but I don’t think that would be a bad thing.

“In the interest of promoting competition, not all of them will see through to the next crisis.”

The panel was also asked if investors had been told to take advice before placing money in a P2P platform.

“Not specifically, but most of the platforms, when you look at the terms of conditions, will say we don’t offer investment advice. If you are unsure, go and take that independent financial advice and that’s something an experienced platform will be pushing,” said Andrew.

“We allow our investors to go away and do their own due diligence.”

Concerns were raised over the standard of underwriting within the P2P industry, but Andrew insisted that underwriting standards amongst established firms was crucial.

“I take slightly more risks than some of my lenders do, but I’ve got to make sure my lenders are protected, so I’m very conscious,” said Andrew.

“We don’t want [the] granny to invest all her life savings in one loan and lose it, because the Daily Mail will get hold of it.”