Here's what online lenders are saying about the Deloitte report dismissing the sector as 'not significant'

Deloitte put out a pretty brutal report on the marketplace lending industry on Monday, predicting it "will not be significant" and saying players in the market are "unlikely to pose a threat to banks in the mass market."

Marketplace lenders are online platforms that connect retail lenders with borrowers, cutting out banks who traditionally sit in the middle.

People can lend out their money at attractive returns averaging 7%, while small businesses and consumers can get quicker and easier cash than if they went to a bank.

Marketplace lenders have grown from non-existence a decade ago to a $180 billion industry today. But Deloitte thinks that the growth of marketplace lenders - more commonly called peer-to-peer lenders in the UK - could be peaking

The auditor thinks they can enjoy a profitable if modest existence targeting specialist, niche segments of the market where their knowledge can be a competitive advantage. But if they target more mass-market offerings, their destiny is not in their own hands. The success or failure of these platforms will be due to interest rates and banks, who could undercut them on price and equal them at technology.

BI has been polling the reaction to this report among those in the industry. Here are the responses we got back from some of the top UK platforms: