Unbolted is a UK based online personal asset-based peer-to-peer lending platform and pawnbroker, where individuals can borrow from other individuals by using high value personal assets [1] such as luxury watches, cars, fine arts, antiques, jewellery and commodities such as gold.
[2][3] Unbolted was set up by Ashwin Parmeswaran and Rito Haldar with an aim to make short-term borrowing transparent, affordable and convenient for consumers and small business owners, by using their high-value personal assets to access low-cost loans.
[4] It raised seed funding in July 2014 prior to its public launch in November 2014.
When issuing these loans, Unbolted used to purchase exchange-traded derivatives (ETF put options) that paid off in the event that gold prices fell.
When new FCA regulations came into place in December 2019, Unbolted ended Gold Trust protection for any new gold/precious metal loans.