Lending Works Shield: How The Reserve Fund Has Radically Changed

Lending Works has boosted allowances to cover future possible bad debts from £3 million to £5.5 million, by budgeting for more borrower interest to be paid into the Lending Works Shield. While that means much greater coverage that will better match expected bad debts, it…

Is Lending Works Still A Good Investment?

Lending Works has adjusted its forecasts of lender returns and bad debts for new loans. It’s increased the amount of borrower payments that now cover bad debts, with lending rates remaining attractive in its highest-paying account. All this has taken place after hiring a new…

More On Lending Works’ Lower Interest Rates

There’s a lot to update you on with Lending Works again, which has been split between several of us to write up. In this article, I’m tackling the nitty-gritty around the reductions to lending interest rates on loans issued in 2019 or earlier. To see…

Lending Works Update: March 2020 Summary

You absolutely must read all our research on Lending Works this month to get a good overview of it as an investment proposition today. As lenders, you need to reset what you thought you knew about Lending Works and take a fresh look, because it’s…

Why FSCS Protection Matters In P2P Lending

The FCA recently suspended a regulated financial business due to weak controls against money laundering, leaving up to one million account holders unable to access their money. The suspended company, called ePayments Systems Limited, has nothing to do with the peer-to-peer lending industry. But it…

Who Can Invest In Peer-To-Peer Lending?

Peer-to-peer lending (including P2P IFISAs) is classified as one of the safer alternative investments, which is why it’s available to all who wish to invest by lending directly to other people, businesses and property owners. But, since it’s still a relatively new form of investing,…

4thWay’s 8 Top IFISA Picks

Neil Faulkner, 4thWay’s co-founder and Head of Research, has picked his top eight IFISA picks, based on his assessment of the risks and rewards. They include: Five selections that are easy to use and are good for both entry-level and expert-level investors. Five selections that…

The Election Result Is Boosting P2P Lending

Crowd2Fund’s CEO recently expressed strong views on the subject of industry news and forecasts, so we invited him to write about them on 4thWay. 4thWay’s editor (Neil here) added in subtitles and lightly edited. The election result helps the P2P industry grow rapidly Crowd2Fund* is…

Do “Sophisticated Investors” Have Less Legal Protection?

Jocelyn, 4thWay subscriber, wrote: “I’m having real problems understanding what the implications are of saying that I am a sophisticated rather than retail investor in the new appropriateness checks, and I wonder whether 4thway will be doing a short piece on this – I tried…

The P2P Lending Sites That Spread Your Money Across Every Loan

You can go to this comparison page that is filtered for you to compare peer-to-peer lending platforms that automatically assign you to loans, or that offer you the option to do so. So: Which peer-to-peer lending platforms spread your risks? Most of them do not…

Growth Street’s Largest Loans Turn Bad

There’s been quite an exciting development at Growth Street. I use the word “exciting” to mean it’s a story with a lot of bang, rather than good news. Certainly not for me, as it reveals a mistake by me. Probably my biggest since co-founding 4thWay….

Is The Zopa Login Secure?

The Zopa login page, as well as Zopa’s cyber security in general, needs to be strong to deter hackers keen to try and take a piece of the billion pounds being lent through this peer-to-peer lending site. As WordFence says, the “secure” symbol in your…

Best Alternative To Landbay

It’s got a little more fiddly for peer-to-peer lending platforms to keep on going. New regulations that started in December have put extra burdens on them – and it seems that this was enough to tip some to the point where they’ve chosen to close…

Why Do Peer-To-Peer Lending Rates Fall? 5 Reasons

You may have noticed that the lending rates you can earn are higher when a peer-to-peer lending website or IFISA first launches. Then, peer-to-peer lending rates fall over the following years to more sensible levels. The five possible causes of falling peer-to-peer lending rates are:…

Personal Peer-To-Peer Lending: It’s Underrated!

Before you start to assess a P2P lending website or IFISA provider that does personal loans, it really helps to understand the characteristics and features of personal peer-to-peer lending. In other words: what are you getting into when you lend your money in these loans,…

Update on Proplend

Here’s a quick update on Proplend. Proplend’s finally gone and got itself a bad debt Proplend* has finally had its first loan funded by individuals turn bad, out of £70 million in lending and around 90 loans over five years. Enough time has passed that…

P2P Site FundingSecure Collapse: 10 Things You Need To Know Today

At 10.48am yesterday (Wednesday, 23 October), UK financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority released this notice. This made public the news that regulated P2P lending website FundingSecure had gone bust, with CG Recovery Ltd (CGRL) appointed as administrators to the failed platform. FundingSecure operated a…

How Zopa Chases Loans That Go Bad

At our request, Mat Gazeley of Zopa wrote the following blog about its collections and recoveries policy, which has been published both here and on Zopa’s own website. Treating customers fairly and delivering value to them is the central idea behind Zopa. This means giving…

How Peer-to-Peer Lending Works

We try to explain peer-to-peer lending in What Is Peer-to-Peer Lending? However, it can sometimes be easier in an image. So we’ve created one for you called “How Peer-to-Peer Lending Works – For Investors”. Click on it to open it up. There is a mobile-friendly…

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