CrowdProperty Review
CrowdProperty’s Bridging & Development loans are unrated. This account has recently been paying lenders interest before bad debts. Visit CrowdProperty or keep reading the CrowdProperty Review.
Housemartin Review
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.
Somo Review
Somo’s Bridging Lending Account received an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. These loans have been paying lenders . That’s before bad debts, although historically losses have been virtually zero. Visit Somo* or keep reading the Somo Review.
Kuflink In Trouble With The Financial Conduct Authority
I was hoping to do an update on Kuflink in November after getting sufficient answers to a number of outstanding queries, as well as corrected data. Unfortunately, those answers are not all in yet, but there’s more immediate news for me to update you on….
Some Company Account Links
For those of you have just read Can A P2P Lending Provider Be Too Profitable? by Neil Faulkner, I have compiled a list of some of the pages we follow when online lending and investment providers file their company accounts at Companies House: AxiaFunder (Champerty…
Can A P2P Lending Provider Be Too Profitable?
The last time we updated our piece on profitability (Which P2P Lending Sites Are Profitable?) I received the comment: “There is a flipside, the more the platform is making, the more they are taking from the lenders who actually fund the loans. And once Lendy was…
Inside Loanpad: The Tech Protecting Your Lending Returns
In 4thWay’s main update published this week, I wrote about how the financial regulator has put restrictions on Kuflink, due to failings in governance. “Governance” basically means managing the business in a proper way, with sufficient safeguards for lenders and others. One of the issues…
Kuflink Review
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…
Latest Full Lande Assessment For Lenders
LANDE* was the first ever P2P lending company in either the eurozone or continental Europe to be fully assessed by 4thWay. Lenders using LANDE have lent since 2020. What does LANDE do? LANDE’s borrowers are Latvian, Lithuanian and Romanian businesses – almost all farmers. Loans…
Peer-To-Peer Lenders: Who’s Out And Who’s In?
Today, just a reeeeeaallly quick look at a couple of the changes to 4thWay’s complete list of all P2P lending and other online direct lending providers. Because a few of the changes leaped out at me over the past few weeks: LandlordInvest is “out” This…
List Of All The Peer-To-Peer Lending Companies In The UK
The number and type of P2P lending companies operating from the UK changes regularly. We keep this page updated every quarter. On this page, you’ll find: Full alphabetical list of the peer-to-peer lending companies in the UK. Which includes: – What types of lending they…
Proplend Review
Proplend’s Tranche A, 5-50% LTV Lending Against Property Mostly Receiving Rent has earned an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. These loans have been paying interest after lending fees bad debts. Proplend’s other loans (called tranche B and C) are also 3/3 rated and paying 9%-12%….
Somo Now Taking First Loss On Most Loans
On second-charge loans approved on or after 1st November 2025, Somo* is providing 10% first-loss protection on the money you lend. The total Somo will ever pay out for the guarantee is capped at £1.2 million. Somo’s guarantee cuts in when all reasonable attempts to…
Unbolted Review
Unbolted’s IFISA And Classic Account are Unrated, because we don’t receive sufficient data to conduct our full assessments. Unbolted has only sporadically provided information and sparse data to 4thWay. Lenders seem to be offered around after bad debts, if you re-lend your loans and interest….
P2P Lending Lessons From The Sequel To the Financial Crisis
Can you believe the world’s banking regulators actually let this happen? Risky lending triggered the 2008 financial crisis, so regulators banned the big banks from doing it. But then those same regulators allowed the banks to lend money to non-bank lenders—who could still make the…
Kuflink Update: Bad Debts & How Do Recent Changes Impact Lenders?
We’ve had a loooot of emails from lenders about recent changes at Kuflink, as well as one or two about bad debts. I’ve finished my investigations into the changes and re-interviewed key people at Kuflink. I’ve also done some preliminary research on bad debts in…
Loanpad Review
Loanpad’s Premium Account/Premium IFISA received an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating. This account has been paying interest with zero losses. Visit Loanpad* or keep reading the Loanpad Review.
4thWay P2P And Direct Lending Index: Q2 2025
Annualised returns after costs and losses have averaged 7.49%, with no losing months. The graph above is not smoothed but actual results over time. I note that, if all write-offs from bad debts were squashed into the same period of time, it would have meant…
There’s No Such Thing as “No Lender Fee”
P2P lending costs money for both borrowers and lenders. Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch! Firstly, I’ll explain how “free” lending actually costs you money, starting with an example from another finance-related industry that all of you should be familiar with, namely…
Downing Crowd Review
Downing Crowd’s Property Development Lending & Wholesale Lending is unrated, due to lack of information. These loans have been paying lenders around interest before bad debts. Visit Downing Crowd or keep reading the Downing Crowd Review.
What is Downing Crowd?
Downing Crowd currently focuses on providing you with opportunities to lend to property developers, as well as to lend to other lenders – which is called wholesale lending.
Downing Crowd restricts both kinds of lending to sophisticated or high-net worth individuals.
It has other types of business loans still outstanding, which smaller lenders are allowed to take part in. (Note that while the lending arrangements are called “bonds”, I call them “loans” in this review for simplicity. The distinction really isn’t important from a risk-reward perspective.)
Those other kinds of loans are either to trading businesses, such as pubs and care homes, or lending to fund renewable energy projects. However, all these kinds of loans appear to now be a very small part of overall lending and the limited evidence available suggests Downing Crowd might is winding them down.
You’re currently looking at typical lending interest rates before bad debts of 6.25%.
When did Downing Crowd start?
Downing has been lending investors’ money since 2010. Its online lending branch opened in 2016, where individuals have lent £240 million.
Over the years, the amount being lent has gradually halved to its current level under £30 million. I do not know what its plans are for the future.
What interesting or unique points does it have?
Downing Crowd is part of a much larger, highly profitable business that has existed since the 80s and that collectively manages around £2 billion in investments.
Your access to wholesale lending is not so common, so it gives you an option that is not so easy to get elsewhere.
Downing Crowd review: how good are its loans?
The wholesale lending can be either short-term property (bridging) lending or lending to small- and medium-sized businesses. So you’re lending to a lending business, which then lends on either to property owners or to smaller, but mostly profitable, businesses.
I agree with Downing Crowd that wholesale lending adds an extra layer of protection for the end lenders such as yourselves.
You’re funding the wholesale lending. You lend to wholesale borrowers, which lend your money on. A wholesale borrower is obliged to repay you even if its own borrowers fail to repay.
Furthermore, if its own borrowers fail to repay, it is you who has the first right to receive recoveries of any bad debt – and not the wholesale borrower.
With the wholesale bridging loans, you usually – but not always – benefit from a first legal charge, meaning that if the end borrower’s property needs to be forcibly sold, you get your money back first, regardless of the wholesale borrower’s own financial position.
And, as usual in property lending, the end borrower is not allowed to sell that property on its own, before the loan is repaid to you.
With the wholesale business loans, you also benefit from security from the end borrowers. This can be weaker, as it’s often based on whatever money, machinery or other assets that business happens to have left when it goes out of business, rather than bricks-and-mortar.
Most of what we once knew about the strength of Downing Crowd loans is now out-of-date and the available evidence shows that Downing’s criteria have changed. What seems likely is that it generally caps amounts property developers are allowed to borrow at perhaps 70% of the hoped-for sale price. If that’s true then it’s a decent cap.
Historically, it has averaged something in the region of 60% on development lending.
It’s most likely its business loans are typically to help borrowers move their existing debts to cheaper rates.
Unfortunately, there’s not much more that I can tell you about its loans until Downing becomes transparent again.
How much experience do Downing Crowd’s key people have?
Downing Crowd has approved the same kinds of loans for over a decade and its people have complementary skills, including property loan approvals, development lending and renewable energy.
It was convincing about its experience when we conducted our interviews with it many years ago. However, with team changes and no successful contact with Downing for some time, there’s no-one left there who we have interviewed directly and we don’t have access to their key people any more.
Downing Crowd review: lending processes
Some years ago, we talked to Downing Crowd about many of its processes in lending, loan-monitoring and bad-debt collection, and we took information and data to back it up. We thought it had in place some capable and professional lending operations.
It also outlined its credit-risk modelling, which is a technique for containing risks that’s not always applied – and harder to do – for many of the types of loans that Downing Crowd does, but it’s good to see.
While we’re unable to get an update on its processes, it’s probably more likely than not that they have remained robust.
How good are Downing Crowd’s interest rates, bad debts and margin of safety?
Around 6.25% is not a lot of return when you have virtually zero information to assess the quality of what you might be lending in. Especially for something like property development lending. Lending interest rates are low at Downing Crowd compared to similar competitors.
Very, very old data we obtained showed good results, but we can no longer assume that its results have continued that trajectory as its online lending platform has matured. Nor we can assess whether it’s been kicking new bad debts down the road for later.
Has Downing Crowd provided enough information to assess the risks?
Downing Crowd was extremely open with 4thWay for our initial detailed assessment of it, providing all the data, information and interviews we requested, but we have lost touch and had no detailed data since 2018. Downing Crowd stopped responding to our requests.
Downing Crowd also doesn’t provide the general public with anything like sufficient information to do a home assessment of the risks or to understand the current status of loans through its online platform.
Is Downing Crowd profitable?
Downing Crowd is owned by Downing LLP, an investment manager. It has been profitable for all or most of the past 16 years at least. This provides lenders good safety in the event Downing Crowd needs to be wound down.
As we’re missing all the information we need to give any assessment of risk and performance, I’ve not recently gone through the company filings for every single company related to this group, as there are a large number of subsidiaries.
However, I read the most recently filed audited accounts of the parent company, which show £11 million profit in the ten months to March 2025. It routinely pulls in eight-figure profits like that.
It also has plenty of cash and assets, outweighing debts.
Is Downing Crowd a good investment?
My best guess, if pressed, is that Downing Crowd is still a good investment, but guesses aren’t nearly good enough. Downing Crowd must provide more information for potential lenders to make a more sensible decision.
What is Downing Crowd’s minimum lending amount and how many loans can I lend in?
The minimum you can put in a loan is £500. You need to choose your own loans.
The last data we received – an age ago – showed there aren’t a huge number of loans to choose from and my best guess is that the number has shrunk substantially since then (although that might be offset by the fact you’re doing wholesale lending).
Does Downing Crowd have an IFISA?
Downing Crowd’s loans are available in an IFISA.
Can I sell Downing Crowd loans to exit early?
Not easily, but it’s technically possible.
There’s no online market for buying and selling. You need to find another Downing Crowd lender who wants to buy and ask Downing Crowd to trade the loan manually, for a £25 fee.
The amount that the buyer pays for your loan parts is agreed between you (e.g. if the buyer wants to pay less as the loan is now considered more risky.)
Is Downing Crowd truly P2P lending?
The legal structure is what protects you from seeing your money going off to pay the P2P lending company’s own debts, if it was to go bust. So long as the structure is legally correct, and the provider operates those structures correctly in practice, your loans are ringfenced from the likes of Barclays taking a slice from you to pay off what the provider owes it.
We only note legal structure for you when a P2P lending company doesn’t use the standard “P2P agreements”. While Downing Crowd has had permission from the regulator to offer those agreements in the past, it has never used them.
Currently, it uses permissions related to the FCA’s debt-based investments regime. Rather than being called loans, Downing Crowd’s bonds are technically known as “non-readily realisable securities”.
Cutting short the mumbo-jumbo, the important point is that Downing Crowd is so structured that it never has any right to the loan, or any part of your loan repayments or interest, except for receiving its fees and costs agreed with you.
The bottom line is that there’s no perceptible difference in risk between this and a standard P2P agreement in terms of protecting lenders from Downing Crowd going bust.
Visit Downing Crowd.
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.
We are not financial, legal or tax advisors, which means that we don't offer advice or recommendations based on your circumstances and goals.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and not held by 4thWay. 4thWay is not regulated by ESMA or the FCA. All the specialists and researchers who conduct research and write articles for 4thWay are subject to 4thWay's Editorial Code of Practice. For more, please see 4thWay's terms and conditions.
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