I wrote this morning* about the latest news from European personal loans P2P lending company Bondora, which UK lenders can use to lend to borrowers in other countries. In a moment I’ll share my thoughts on Bondora’s changes and there’ll be a dark interlude into doctors killing patients, insanity and financial theory, which is all more closely related… Read more
Candid Opinion
One Borrower Grading System to Rule Them All
5 Ways to Spread Your Risks When There Aren’t Enough Loans
It’s all very well us telling you to spread your risk – diversify – across dozens or hundreds of loans, but what if a P2P lending company you’re interested in doesn’t have enough loans? Other than walking away, I think you have five choices: 1. Spread your risk by investing over several weeks, rather than… Read more
Major Report Into RateSetter
Once again, we have a new report into the outstanding P2P lending opportunity that is RateSetter, with interest rates up to 6% and the lowest 4thWay® Risk Rating of 10, which makes it just slightly short of savings accounts in terms of the risk of losing a lot of money in one go. Each of… Read more
December Lending Blues
Zopa, the world’s oldest P2P lending Company, says its lenders set great store in transparency, so it has started to take steps to become much more open on when your money will be lent. This makes sense; we all become much more patient and complain less when we know how long we’ve got to wait in line for. More… Read more
P2P Lending Returns to Average 5%
Ever wondered what the average returns in P2P lending are? We wonder that all the time. We know average doesn’t mean much, but, like most people, we’re curious anyway. We have just launched the 4thWay® P2P Forecast Returns Index, which is the first index of P2P lending returns. It’s not the big one in terms of… Read more
Major Report Into Funding Circle
Again, I’m abusing my position and writing a blog about one of our own products – and yet it is something I would have written about if another company had created it. This week we have continued our series of highly detailed, plain English, informative, candid 4thWay® Insight Reports by publishing the next one, which is… Read more
Greed and Fear in P2P Lending
P2P lending is an investment and all investments go through cycles. It doesn’t matter what you invest in, be it shares, property or something else, all of them are driven up and down by supply-and-demand, greed and fear. It’s the last two that cause huge bubbles and big crashes. Investing in P2P loans is not likely… Read more
Detailed Research Report into Wellesley & Co.
We don’t intend to use our Candid Opinion blogs to brag about what we’re up to. But if it was another company producing high-quality research, we would inform you about it either in our news articles or in our candid blogs. However, it’s us setting the standard in P2P lending research. Our first 4thWay® Insight… Read more
Why I’m not worried about Wellesley’s P2PFA exit
My colleague, Matthew Howard, wrote just a few moments ago about Wellesley leaving the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA). It seems quite possible that the company left due to differences over its savings bond. On the one hand, Wellesley & Co. is a peer-to-peer lender, matching borrowers and lenders. On the other hand, it has a much more… Read more