Alec’s career path as an art dealer followed a fairly standard pattern: a passion for art (especially pop art probing the darker recesses of the psyche), an art history degree and then salaried employment as a dealer. Now he’s at an interesting point: he knows enough to go independent and with his close friend and prospective business partner Colm (an artist specialising in the pop art Alec loves so much), he’s ready to set up and open his own gallery and start exhibiting.

The son of a factory worker and a shop assistant, he certainly hasn’t come from the wealthy backgrounds many of his prestigious collectors enjoyed. Setting up an art gallery costs money – money that Alec doesn’t currently have. And he admits that deeply ingrained values from his working class background have left him incurably fearful of incurring long-term debts, but he does need money.

He and Colm are willing to plough their savings into the venture but they’re short of £30,000. It was as they were researching fund-raising options on the Net that they both came across an online article from The Guardian newspaper featuring peer-to-peer lender Unbolted. As they read further, they felt their irreversible anti-borrowing beliefs reversing.

That’s because Unbolted offered a secured asset loan based on a high value item they possessed, which would be used as collateral by the platform as security for the borrowing. No intrusive credit searches, no long-term arrangements (Unbolted loans typically mature in six months), just highly competitive interest rates and fast decisions.

Partnering with a raft of specialist auction houses, Unbolted will usually make an indicative offer of a loan upon receipt of an upload of a photo of the personal possession - and a transfer of funds into the borrower’s bank account on the same day as their expert valuers have determined the value of the item on a secondary market. If the loan is repaid within six months, the asset is returned to the borrower; if not, it’s sold at auction, with any additional sums above and beyond the agreed value being returned to the original owner.

What really set their hearts fluttering was an article from Unbolted’s own website:

“We believe that every art dealer and collector should be able to access the same kind of secured asset loan borrowing facilities that only the privileged few are currently able to reach. We’re highly aware that credit checks can be a barrier to a freelancing art dealer’s success. So we don’t use them. Ever.”

Alec had picked up a huge bargain a few years ago during a business trip to the United States. He’d come across what he believed to be a small but original Jackson Pollack in a downmarket old New York antique dealer. A work “in the style of Pollack,” he was later able to authenticate, was a genuine original. It cost him $200. Its actual worth was £50,000.

Upon agreeing with his authentication and valuing the work at a similar price, Unbolted was able to transfer £30,000 into Alec’s account within hours of receiving the painting for safekeeping.

Alec, happily, was able to repay the owed amount in full six months later – the artists he’d supported for years were loyal to him and his new gallery was a rapid success. And he has his precious Pollack back in his possession.