Need to raise a few hundred pounds fast? Plenty of people find themselves in a similar position, and many are tempted to take out a payday loan and suffer the high-interest consequences.

The good news is, thanks to peer-to-peer lender Unbolted, a payday loan really isn’t the only option. With its unique secured asset loan model, the Unbolted platform’s pool of lenders can meet individual borrowing requirements within hours of application, so long as the borrower has a valuable asset that can be collateralised as security for the loan.

There’s a major advantage to this method of borrowing. Unbolted offers a vastly better representative APR in comparison to that of typical pawnbrokers or payday lenders, which our research shows varies between a steep 69 per cent at best to a heart-stopping 1693% per cent at worst. The Unbolted equivalent is just 44% per cent. No contest.

That’s not all. Many people, for good reasons, are averse to having their creditworthiness rated by lenders. Every time a credit search is conducted, it leaves a digital footprint behind that can function as a “bad mark” against an applicant’s credit status. Unlike most other p2p lenders, Unbolted never subjects its prospective borrowers to such intrusive invasions of their privacy. Creditworthiness is irrelevant to our lenders. Our product is a non-discriminatory one - we believe that people of good character who may have a weak credit score should not be prevented from borrowing if they have other means of securitising their loan.

Let’s illustrate what we mean with the example of young Aiden, a 23-year-old newly qualified medic. As he takes up his first junior doctor job as a Foundation House Officer, he wants to invest in his own high-end stethoscope, ophthalmoscope and other medical equipment, totaling £480. His first pay cheque is yet to materialise, but he needs the equipment fast.

Now, as it happens, this young man doesn’t have to turn to his hard working parents for extra money. He knows he’ll be able to pay for the equipment in his first month of work. If he checks with Unbolted, he’ll make a pleasant discovery: the platform has now expanded its wide repertoire of accepted assets to include new Apple products as collateral for borrowing. Aiden owns a mint-condition Apple iPhone 6S Plus with gold trim (and a gutsy 128GB of memory).

Our expert partners would determine the phone’s likely value on a secondary market. In Aiden’s case, it would be more than sufficient for the £400 he needs to raise. He could settle the six-month loan the very next month without penalty if he wants to.

The fact remains that many people are in Aiden’s situation: temporarily cash poor but sitting on an asset that they can “unbolt” to release its value. In addition to musical instruments, jewellery, classic cars, rare books and manuscripts, gold, silver, fine art and fine wines, we now accept new Apple offerings. This range of accepted assets allows Unbolted to offer lending to suit a broad span of borrowing requirements, from just a few hundred pounds (like in Aiden's case) to tens of thousands of pounds.

Motto of the story: when in need, Unbolt your assets.