Salad, the fair lending pioneer and recipient of a 2026 King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation, has launched its fifth bond offer on the direct impact investing platform, Ethex, aiming to bridge the gap in access to fair finance for millions of UK workers.
The launch comes at a critical time for UK borrowers. During the 2026 Debt Awareness Week, leading debt charity StepChange revealed that 51% of UK adults have struggled with debt, a reminder of the financial pressure facing households across the country, and that access to mainstream credit can be restricted for more people than we think.
For many, difficulties accessing fair and affordable credit are not due to reckless borrowing, but a wide range of life circumstances, from irregular income and rising living costs to historic financial challenges or simply having a “thin” credit file. Yet traditional lending models often fail to account for this complexity, locking people out of mainstream options and pushing them toward high-cost alternatives.
The launch follows the overwhelming success of Salad’s previous bond offer in October 2025, which raised 165% of its £600,000 target from everyday investors committed to social impact.
With all Salad’s previous bond offers on Ethex being successful and often oversubscribed, this new raise aims to reach its maximum target. 100% of the investment will go directly toward new lending capital for Salad’s customers, with funds recycled as loans are repaid, multiplying the impact of every investment.
A crisis of exclusion
Currently, at least 1 in 3 UK adults (20 million people) have difficulty accessing affordable credit from mainstream lenders, a figure that has risen by 50% since 2016. Traditional credit scoring systems often exclude individuals with full tie jobs and stable employment, based on “thin” credit files or outdated criteria.
This “credit desert” forces millions of workers toward predatory, high-interest lenders or illegal loan sharks, who now serve an estimated 3 million people in the UK. Salad’s mission is to provide a fair, inclusive alternative that looks beyond the score to a person’s real-life affordability, helping prevent people from slipping further into debt or paying inflated interest rates.
How everyday investors are stepping up
Through the Ethex platform, everyday investors can back Salad’s responsible lending model with investments starting from as little as £50. By participating, investors are helping to dismantle the “poverty premium”, the extra costs people on low incomes pay for essential services.
The scale of this impact is laid out in Ethex’s 2024/25 impact review, which reveals that everyday UK investors diverted £74.9 million away from high-cost lenders and into the hands of people who needed a fair deal. Over the past two years, investments made through the Ethex platform have funded 153,136 affordable short-term loans from ethical lenders, totalling £168.6 million saving borrowers an estimated £74.9 million in interest compared to what they would have paid to high-cost or payday lenders. These are not institutional figures. They are the collective result of ordinary people choosing to invest differently.
Craig Pennington, CEO of Salad, commented: “Fair lending shouldn’t be a privilege; it should be a right for any hardworking person who can afford to repay. The fact that over half of UK adults have struggled with debt shows just how urgent this issue has become. We’re seeing an astonishing increase in demand, receiving thousands of applications every day. This fifth bond offer allows the UK crowd to take direct action against predatory lending, ensuring that 100% of their investment goes toward providing a financial lifeline for workers who have been written off by the mainstream system.”
Alan Campbell, Founder of Salad, commented: “When I founded Salad in 2018, my concern was that for too long, millions of people had been locked out of fair and affordable credit – not because they could not afford to repay a loan, but because of outdated approaches to lending. That is not just unfair, it is a barrier to financial resilience and social mobility.
“At Salad, we have spent years proving there is a better way. By using Open Banking data to understand affordability in real time, we can responsibly lend to people who are often overlooked by mainstream providers, helping them avoid high-cost borrowing. This bond offer is intended to help us extend that mission further by reaching more people, providing more affordable loans and continuing to demonstrate that innovation can create both commercial success and meaningful social impact.”
Demonstrating proven impact
Salad’s unique approach uses Open Banking data and proprietary machine learning to assess true affordability rather than relying on outdated credit scores. The impact of this model is significant:
- In 2024–25 alone, Salad saved more than 90,000 workers £41 million in interest.
- Borrowers saved an average of £454 each in interest repayments compared to high-cost alternatives.
- Salad’s in-application tools have helped applicants identify over £872 million in unclaimed state benefits to which they were entitled.
- Salad was recently spotlighted in actor and activist Michael Sheen’s 2025 documentary on unfair lending as a Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI), making a tangible difference in people’s lives.
Royal recognition for a revolutionary approach
In May 2026, Salad was honoured with a King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation — one of the UK’s most prestigious business honours, and a first for a retail lender in the award’s 60-year history. The recognition reflects both the technical innovation behind Salad’s proprietary Crouton platform, which uses Open Banking data and machine learning to make fast, fair affordability decisions, and the human impact that technology has enabled.
“This recognition is a testament to the commitment of our entire team, our founder, and our investors and partners. Their determination to provide more choice and better options for people underserved by mainstream finance drives everything we do.” — Craig Pennington, CEO, Salad.
Bond details
The new bond offer is now live on Ethex. Investors can support financial inclusion while targeting potential tax-free returns of 8% through the Ethex Innovative Finance ISA.
For more information on the bond offer and Salad’s impact, visit www.ethex.org.uk/invest/salad-v.
