Australia's first peer-to-peer green lending platform - RateSetter’s Green Loan marketplace - is an innovative online platform that brings together investors, borrowers and clean energy product providers.
It allows investors to lend directly to creditworthy borrowers looking to buy or install approved energy efficient and solar products.
Through the online platform, investors can nominate the amount they wish to invest, the interest rate they are prepared to accept, and their request can then be matched to approved borrowers. Borrowers can access this finance to invest in eligible clean energy assets.
The project was seeded with $20 million from the CEFC in 2017 and in its first year of operation approved finance for more than 1,000 households and small businesses to install energy efficient and renewable energy products through the RateSetter Green Loan marketplace.
These loans have helped finance a wide range of green product purchases, including solar panels and battery systems, energy efficient lighting and energy efficient heating and cooling systems. Solar systems financed over the first 12 months of the program have resulted in a reduction of over 2,250 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.