Naturally, we can’t know the answer to the question in the title precisely, because every major economic event is unique, coming with different causes, different factors happening at the time. However, investors need to invest – and lenders need to lend – with a large…
Recently we made a new effort to get even more data from the P2P lending providers to really get a full idea of how easy it is for lenders to get their money lent out at the moment. We wanted to know if we could…
Getting your money back when using auto-lend Some P2P lending accounts and IFISAs spread your money across loans automatically or have similar “auto-bid” or “auto-lend” features. When it comes to getting your money back from these sorts of accounts, a 4thWay user summed up the…
What is a secondary market? A secondary market allows you to buy and sell existing loan parts to or from other lenders. You might do this for bigger profits, to exit early or for other reasons. The only realistic way to leave P2P lending loans…
We’ve ranked the P2P lending providers in a few different ways on the 4thWay website, either in best-of articles or in our comparison tables, which can themselves be sorted in three different ways. And we’ve covered the details in reviews for them. But we had…
Our specialists have updated the 4thWay PLUS Ratings and 4thWay Risk Scores methodology slightly. On balance, the changes make it a little harder for P2P lending companies to get higher ratings and better scores. My colleagues have also removed all allowances made for COVID-19 forbearance,…
Mike Carter of the 36H Group has passed detailed data on P2P lending companies’ lending results to the FCA to demonstrate why this type of investing should be moved into a different, low-risk category. That’s according to P2P Finance News. 4thWay collects a huge amount…
Hot on the heals of Zopa, Lending Works has closed for new lending by small investors. Most likely its decision was impacted by damage to its reputation in recent years, some of it justified. With lenders all expected to have their money repaid in full,…
Here are your best alternatives to Zopa, now that it’s converting to a bank from P2P lending. (Read The Real Reason Zopa Is Closing Its P2P Arm.) Zopa was the oldest P2P lending company in the world, founded in 2005, with an exceptional record. Most…
Loanpad*, the bridging and development P2P lending company with the strictest lending standards in the industry, has tripled the total amount lent through its platform in 12 months to reach profitability in June 2021. It has reached this stage very quickly, as it only approved…
I’ve looked through Lending Works Trustpilot reviews to find all the ones written in 2021 by its customers who have lent money. Trustpilot combines reviews from all customers, making it hard to distinguish between comments from its borrowers and lenders. The overwhelming majority of reviews…
Northern Provident Investments was a company I’d never even heard of that offered IFISAs. It recently shut down, possibly because it offered mini-bonds, which the FCA recently banned from mass-marketing. Clearly, it was small. It also seems likely it either didn’t offer P2P lending investments…
LendingCrowd* has taken the rare step of deciding to no longer publish its loan book or provide 4thWay with it on a regular basis. As a result of this large step back in transparency, LendingCrowd has lost all its 4thWay PLUS Ratings on all its…
Has P2P lending outperformed long-run returns from the stock market, and with more stability? Where to look for information on shares I’d like to start by crediting the research on shares – and bonds – by Credit Suisse and the London Business School. If you…
RateSetter (which recently closed its P2P business with all lenders in profit after being sold to Metro Bank) and Lending Works* both had to adjust lending interest rates during the pandemic to cover the additional losses from the recession. Their reserve funds alone didn’t cover…
P2P lending often pays better than bonds and there are several reasons for this: Illiquidity – you might not be able to sell up early Most people invest in bonds through bond funds, where they can sell their holdings in those fund right away, even…
4thWay’s specialists have reassessed Lending Works’ ratings. This mostly involves reassessing the performance of their loans and stress testing them with horrible disaster scenarios, such as assuming a severe recession and property crash. In these circumstances, can lenders still end with an overall profit? The…
See the latest update on the subject below in Update On Kuflink’s Financial Results And Auditor Reports. Let’s catch up on 3/3 4thWay PLUS-Rated P2P lending company Kuflink* – which has had a stern ticking off from its former auditors, Ernst & Young, who resigned….
Loanpad now rated Loanpad* (read review) has earned the top 4thWay PLUS Rating of 3/3 “Exceptional” on its Premium and Classic accounts/IFISAs, after its history reached enough maturity for our ratings calculations to be meaningful. The 4thWay PLUS Ratings are a measure of both risk…
We’ve now had 15 full calendar years of P2P lending, which included the Great Recession (albeit for just the one P2P lending company around at the time) and more recently a massive 20% recession coinciding with the first 11 months of the worst pandemic for…
