With bank lending to small businesses stuck at less than 4 per cent and a lack of traction to fill the void between financial institutions and government, peer-to-peer lending has emerged as a viable funding alternative in the UAE.

“We’re not going to solve the funding gap problem [but we] are a piece of the jigsaw,” said Rick Pudner, chairman of the peer-to-peer lending platform Beehive and until last year the chief executive of Emirates NBD. “We are a lender of first resort, however, and not a lender of last resort.”