Salad Finance reaches £4.3m in retail bond funding as investors back open banking approach for UK's 'credit invisible' workers
Salad Finance reaches £4.3m in retail bond funding as investors back open banking approach for UK’s ‘credit invisible’ workers #
UK social lender Salad Finance has raised a cumulative £4.3 million from retail investors across five bond issuances on impact investing platform Ethex. Its latest offer brought in £860,000 from 329 backers, the largest total raised by any community development finance institution (CDFI) through the platform.
The fifth bond offer carries a target return of 8% and is eligible to be held within an Innovative Finance ISA. It had already exceeded its initial £800,000 target well before its 8 October 2026 closing date, according to the company. Sixty-five percent of participants in the latest round are repeat investors.
Salad Finance, also known as Salad Money, describes itself as the UK’s largest consumer lending CDFI. The Manchester-based fintech uses Open Banking data and proprietary machine learning to analyse applicants’ live transaction histories rather than relying on traditional credit scores, allowing it to make same-day affordability decisions. Successful borrowers typically receive funds within two hours. Loan sizes range from £300 to £2,000, repayable over six to 24 months.
The company targets what it calls “credit invisibles”: people in stable employment who are turned away by conventional lenders because their credit files are thin, non-existent, or carry historical blemishes that do not reflect their current financial position. The company says at least one in three UK adults, between 11 million and 20 million people, now struggle to access affordable mainstream credit, a share it says has risen 50% since 2016.
Founder Alan Campbell said in a statement that the fundraising showed retail investors are willing to back alternatives to conventional consumer finance, and that the widening gap in credit access requires structural solutions rather than incremental policy changes.
CEO Craig Pennington, who joined as chief executive in March 2026, said every pound raised through the bond goes directly into affordable lending and that investor demand confirms appetite for capital that produces both social and financial returns.
Because the capital is recycled as loans are repaid, Salad estimates the money raised in the current round could support tens of millions of pounds in cumulative lending over three years.
The bond raise follows Salad’s receipt of a King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation earlier in 2026, which the company says makes it the first retail lender to receive the honour in the award’s six-decade history. The offer remains open on Ethex, where individuals can invest from as little as £50, until 8 October.
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