Our CEO, Filip Karadaghi, was recently interviewed by Mortage Strategy, a leading publication dedicated to the mortgage industry. Filip speaks about his views of the future of P2P lending, childhood dreams and his chess skills.

The interview is reproduced below and the originally article can be found here.

One to One: Filip Karadaghi, chief executive, Landlordinvest

LandlordInvest just got its full FCA authorisations. What are your plans for the company?

We are quite late to the party and many P2P lending platforms have been operating under interim permission with time to develop their business, so we will have to learn from them and use that knowledge to develop our own value proposition quickly.

Our next steps are to build up a track record among the borrower and lender community and show why they should choose us as their go-to platform. Our focus is not volumes, but providing a quality and market leading service.

What are your views on the future of P2P buy-to-let and bridging?

I believe that the future for P2P buy-to-let and bridging is very bright.

It is still less popular, in terms of lending volumes, than unsecured P2P lending (lending to individuals and business) but it is becoming more popular as lenders realise the benefits of property-backed P2P lending and the benefit of having a realisable security in the event of a borrower default.

According to the latest crowdfunding report from Nesta, which publishes the leading research report in the P2P industry, real estate loans is the fastest growing sector in P2P.

The new IFISA will further increase interest for P2P lending, given that cash ISAs offer returns of less than 1 per cent per annum, while the IFISA may offer returns of up to 10 per cent per annum.

As a child, what was your dream job?

Growing up in Moscow during the Soviet era, my dream was to become the president.

I think it was something to do with the fact that leaders were glorified during those times, and given that children are easily impressionable I wanted to be just as glorious as they seemed.

Do you have any secret talents?

I was quite good at chess when I was a child – one of the best in my age group in the country. I stopped competing when I reached my teenage years, which is a bit of shame as many of my competitors from that time went on to became chess Grandmasters – the highest title a chess player can attain.

What are your hobbies?

I like socialising and live in London – the perfect city in which to do so. I am also quite outdoorsy and enjoy spending time in the forest, something that I do much less since moving to London, unfortunately.

However, I try to spend as much time as I can with nature every time I visit my family in Russia and Sweden.

What is the best advice you have received?

Work hard and be fully dedicated to anything you do, but do not take life too seriously and appreciate the small things around you.

Who is your all-time hero, and why?

Socrates was my first hero as he stood up for himself against the masses, even though he knew that he was right and they were wrong – which, unfortunately, led to his death.

I guess this is quite similar to being an entrepreneur – believe in yourself and keep on going, regardless of what other people around you might have to say.

If you were not in your current role, what would you be doing?

I would probably be a property developer, building houses and solving the UK’s housing shortage.

What is the toughest decision you have ever had to make?

I have had to make many tough decisions in my life – and life is the consequence of many decisions – so it is difficult just to choose one.

If you were chancellor for a day, what would you do?

I would implement more policies to encourage house building and stop pursuing landlords for inefficiencies existing in the housing market due to the lack of housing stock supply.