I don’t often write about the ethical, ecological, responsible, “doing good” or social aspects of lending. Hardly anyone clicks on headlines like that. Yet now that I’ve tricked you into this one with my vague title, would you give me a few minutes, as: We…
HNW Lending’s Manual Property & Asset Lending Account, averaging LTV after directors taking first loss, received an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. This manual lending account is paying around interest and the average lent is just of the valuation of the borrowers’ properties. Its auto-lend account…
This review is temporarily down Normally, when 4thWay’s specialists reassess peer-to-peer lending providers and other online direct lending providers on behalf of individual lenders, the new assessment is put up on the 4thWay website with no downtime in between. However, perhaps once per year on…
LEND.ch is a Swiss peer-to-peer lending provider offering lending in Swiss francs (CHF). It hasn’t opened up to 4thWay’s specialists with data and access to its key people and therefore we haven’t conducted our usual week’s long assessment of it. So this is kind of…
Update: the first answer was corrected on 10th June after a stupid error by me. My apologies. On the positive side, on the 11th June HMRC explicitly confirmed to 4thWay that our second answer is correct. We have two questions on flexible ISAs and one…
Occasionally lenders reach out to 4thWay and describe what they are up to, how they’re doing and what their experiences have been when lending. I really appreciate the contact from you! Recently I had an email that inspired me to write this page today. I’m…
The people normally using 4thWay’s research are all very lucky. I mean, I presume you have money to spare if you’re lending it. There are an awful lot of people who can’t say the same. Yet I think it’s worth looking at the other side…
This update on 29th April 2025 is writing up a case in the High Court in February 2025. The judgment on the case was made on 17th April 2025 and it has just landed in my hands. Since the case is now on the public…
Housemartin’s P2P Lending Account And IFISA And Classic Account has earned an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. These loans have been paying lenders around of the loan amount in interest, after bad debts. Visit Housemartin* or keep reading the Housemartin Review.
However, I’m not going to remind you what the latest property-price forecasts from the UK’s best-known economists are for 2025 or the next 12 months. If you want to know, you’ll have to look them up yourselves. Here’s why… What happened in 2024? To start…
My team and I have been assessing P2P lending accounts since 2014 and we continue to have a 100% record. (We won’t always get all the most important calls right – that’s impossible in investing – but we expect that we almost always will.) My…
This content today is extremely different to normal, but I need to get it out, as it’s pressing on my mind. Unusually, this page is not about a cold assessment of an investment provider or lending tips. Instead, it’s all about me. I have to…
Lendwise’s lending accounts are unrated. These loans are expected to pay lenders around after bad debts. Visit Lendwise or keep reading the Lendwise Review.
Proplend’s Tranche A, 0-50% LTV Lending Against Property Mostly Receiving Rent received an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. These loans have been paying interest after bad debts. Visit Proplend* or keep reading the Proplend Review.
Initially published well over a year ago, this page has been updated in March 2025. P2P lending companies’ financial health is of great interest to lenders and of course to us at 4thWay. If a P2P lending company is already making money then it lowers…
What are the best Innovative Finance ISAs? The best innovative finance ISAs are these nine, which offer a market-leading risk-reward balance: CapitalRise IFISA. (Minimum £1,000 per loan.) CapitalStackers IFISA. (Minimum £2,500 per loan.) Housemartin IFISA. (Minimum £1 per loan.) Invest & Fund IFISA. (Minimum £2,500,…
Your main protection is that loans and cash are segregated Firstly, lets get a sense of proportion. Because FSCS protection here is actually a very minor point. If you have loans at a P2P lending company or if that site is holding some of your…
Lande* was the first ever P2P lending company in either the eurozone or continental Europe to be fully assessed by 4thWay. What does Lande do? Lande’s borrowers are Latvian, Lithuanian and Romanian businesses – mostly farmers. The loans usually secured on the farmer’s land or…
With double-digit realised gains so far, returns of 20%+ highly possible, and being unaligned with recessions and property crashes, why wouldn’t you consider this opportunity? Before you read on, AxiaFunder is available to you only if you have invested at least £10,000 in unlisted investments…
Blend’s Development And Property-Secured Business Loans are unrated, due to lack of information. These loans have been paying lenders around . Visit Blend or keep reading the Blend Review.
Through Blend, you are lending to fund residential property developments. The amount lent on a development sometimes tops £2-£3 million.
Blend has also done short-term property (bridging) loans. I believe these are still rare, but we currently have few details.
With some loans you receive monthly interest and with others it’s all paid to you at the end.
Blend has completed £103 million since 2017.
Blend takes a unique approach with its auto-lend option, in that it favours the most loyal and long-term investors. The longer you have had auto-lend switched on, the higher in the lending queue you’ll be. However, you need to leave enough money in your account to take part in a loan, or you will lose your place in the queue.
Blend is one of the few P2P lending companies to share at least some of the higher rate charged to borrowers when they fall late, if Blend decides to charge them extra. You receive the equivalent of approximately three percentage points per year over-and-above the rate you’re already earning.
Unusually, lenders selecting loans for themselves can question the borrowers directly.
Most of this section is now substantially out-of-date as my colleagues and I have not had a chance to interview and check out Blend’s loans for some years, even as its team has evolved and improved. That said, I would now expect the following to be a “worst-case scenario”.
Blend focuses on the quality of the property security as opposed to the quality of the borrower. This is typical of a lot of short-term lending.
Although I would have liked to have heard more unprompted enthusiasm about the record of the property developers it allows as borrowers, it does consider their experience in approving loans and setting rates. Its record of zero losses so far with a sound outstanding loan book wouldn’t likely be achieved if it didn’t take borrower experience seriously.
In loans such as these, lenders might normally see a number of bad debts among the loans they make, but they should generally expect that all or most of those bad debts will ultimately be recovered. So far, Blend has only been tested by one bad debt, which is recovered in full.
Blend ensures that the loans put you at the front of the queue if a borrower’s property ever needs to be repossessed and sold. When lending to property borrowers, this is where you should be putting most of your money, because the risk of large losses rise substantially when you come later in the queue.
Blend has not shared with us its latest criteria and so I don’t know if it’s currently maintaining standards. A few years ago, it appeared to loosen its criteria to 75% of the hoped-for future sale price when it comes to developments. I don’t know where the maximum is now, but hints suggest it could be a lot higher than this for a minority of loans. BLEND currently tells borrowers that over half of its loans are for 65% to 75% of the expected sale price.
As of the beginning of 2025, the average loan size is probably in the region of £500,000 – although there are multiple loans for each development project. It appears that development funding requirements can easily hit £3 million to £5 million.
Still today, Blend only does lending where you are first in the queue to get your money back, in the event the borrower is unable to repay and the property needs to be forcibly sold.
We haven’t had access to interview key people for a long time, but it doesn’t appear to lack talent in development, development lending, credit risk, surveying and legal expertise.
Blend’s team has been stable but also growing in recent years. Its managing director joined in 2022. While I haven’t interviewed him or conducted follow-up background checks, he apparently has a few decades experience that is highly relevant.
Last year, in 2024, Blend added two new important hires, padding out its internal team further. One is a lending director who we know has substantial experience and who also used to work with the managing director. It is uncertain how many hours he devotes to Blend, but his experience is nevertheless likely to be valuable.
Another former colleague was taken on as head of credit and he too appears to have substantial experience, although again we have not interviewed or background-checked him.
Since we haven’t had access and documentary evidence from BLEND for a long time, there’s not much I can say about their current processes.
Developers receive their money in stages, only get chunks of cash after a monitoring surveyor has assessed progress on the development. That is essential in this kind of lending to contain the risks.
However, the money is also raised from lenders as-and-when needed, not up-front, which can lead to unforeseen difficulties in funding the development to completion. The risk is that developers might suddenly be unable to raise later tranches to complete a development and sell for the expected price. For example, if lenders suddenly became doubtful of the quality of loans through Blend.
4thWay is unable to conduct its own assessment of the risks today or in the event of a serious recession and property crash, as we receive no data and little information. Therefore, there is not a lot of substance that I say.
While we can’t attempt to verify this, Blend indicates on its own website that just one development turned bad by its own definition and just another three went over 180 days past the initial completion date. Presuming that these were average sized development projects for Blend, it would be a great record.
No loans are currently in bad-debt recovery and lenders have received pretty much every penny they expected in interest and loan repayments. Lenders currently expect 8.26% after allowing for potential losses in normal times of about 1% of loans.
In recent years, BLEND has been forecasting losses of 3% of loans issued each year as its “best estimate” of eventual losses. However, I think this is in fact either a conservative guess or it is the estimated losses on what Blend calls its “category D” loans only, which are the loans it approves that it considers to be riskiest.
Blend doesn’t currently provide 4thWay with information, data or access, so we can’t do a proper assessment of the risks or the risk-reward balance. It does, however, sometimes respond to our ad-hoc questions.
Blend provides some information through its public website on its people, processes and results. Blend’s statistics table for individual lenders who are browsing its website offers perhaps a nice little summary, but it leaves unanswered questions.
For example, it sometimes refers to number of loans and other times number of developments (aka “projects”). Since there can be many loans per project it can potentially hide important facts.
There is also insufficient information to see how much of the lending is short-term bridging lending instead of development lending or whether loans have been refinanced in order to hide problem debts, for example.
For each loan you might lend in, Blend provides full borrower information, including valuation reports, direct to lenders.
We have little information on Blend’s financial health, as it is not required to publish a large amount of audited information in its accounts. It’s still new, so we expect it will take some time before it becomes profitable.
It appears to be growing at a fast, but not too fast, pace. Certainly in line with sensible growth. I currently expect it to become profitable at some point.
Our security information provider, Sucuri, conducted an arm’s length test and can find no malware or entries on blacklists, and it is rated clean by all major companies like McAfee and Yandex. All other checks, such as on security certificates, were positive.
My feeling is Blend absolutely should be good and the longer it goes on with no cracks appearing the lower the chances that something dangerous is lurking under the surface. But without the access for ongoing, detailed assessments and so little contact for many years, I can’t form a solid opinion.
Blend has been approving maybe a couple of dozen loans per year for a while.
However, with no information to the contrary, I would presume that each loan is actually a tranche of a development loan, and therefore the number of borrowers and developments you’re financing is actually considerably less than that. Maybe even just 5-15 per year.
That means you’ll need to take time to spread your money across enough opportunities.
You can choose your own loans or spread your money across multiple loans automatically. The minimum you can lend in each loan is £1,000.
When using auto-lend, you can choose the maximum you want to lend in any loan. Have patience, as lenders who have had auto-lend on for longer will get into every loan before you. Top up your account as-and-when you need to, as you’ll lose your place in the queue if you have no cash available for the next loan.
Blend provides some information of what will happen in a wind down and this changed substantially by the end of 2024. The most notable change in recent times is that Resolution Compliance is no longer appointed to take over in the event Blend closes.
If Blend chooses to close, it will run its own wind down of your loans, which, like your cash, are segregated on your behalf. That’s the main thing.
I have no details on how much cash Blend keeps aside to fund an orderly wind down or whether those funds are protected from other uses or costs, but it claims to have sufficient amounts set aside for an orderly wind down.
If Blend were to go bust, owing substantial debts, it’s unclear how orderly the wind down would be or whether sufficient money is set aside to cover it. It has a manual to assist any administrators that would be appointed to take over from Blend, but their costs will be high and they might not have the regulatory approval required to ensure that lenders keep all their protections.
Blend doesn’t have an IFISA.
If other lenders are willing to buy, you can sell your loan parts for the outstanding amount and any outstanding interest, minus a 0.6% fee. You can’t sell loans that are late or that are nearing their repayment dates. Blend has discretion to prevent the sale of loans for other reasons.
Thank you for reading the Blend Review! Visit Blend.
Independent opinion: 4thWay will help you to identify your options and narrow down your choices. We suggest what you could do, but we won't tell you what to do or where to lend; the decision is yours. We are responsible for the accuracy and quality of the information we provide, but not for any decision you make based on it. The material is for general information and education purposes only.
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The 4thWay® PLUS Ratings are calculations developed by professional risk modellers (someone who models risks for the banks), experienced investors and a debt specialist from one of the major consultancy firms. They measure the interest you earn against the risk of suffering losses from borrowers being unable to repay their loans in scenarios up to a serious recession and a major property crash. The ratings assume you spread your money across hundreds or thousands of loans, and continue lending until all your loans are repaid. They assume you lend across 6-12 rated P2P lending accounts or IFISAs, and measure your overall performance across all of them, not against individual performances.
The 4thWay PLUS Ratings are calculated using objective criteria that can be measured and improved on over time, although no rating system is perfect. Read more about the 4thWay® PLUS Ratings.
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