What is Peer-to-Peer Lending?

Here’s an overview of how you can earn an income and make money by helping others escape the banks through peer-to-peer lending. You open an online account with one or more peer-to-peer lending companies, and then you can lend money to people or businesses, including property owners….

4thWay’s 10 P2P Investing Principles

Peer-to-peer lending is on average relatively low risk compared to the stock market and it is relatively easy to assess compared to picking shares – provided you arm yourself with knowledge. But it’s still, most definitely, an investment, meaning carelessness, greed, panic, pride, fear and…

How Money Lenders Assess Luxury Asset Loan Applications

It was a lot of years ago when we assessed Unbolted’s lending processes, and then lost contact with them for a long time. In summer 2023, however, we’ve received substantial supporting evidence and answers to go along with a relatively short interview on lending processes…

Is Somo Truly P2P Lending?

Peer-to-peer lending is not a regulated phrase. By 4thWay’s definition, any online lending company is peer-to-peer if it structures itself and its loans to offer the same level of protection as direct lending, in order to protect lenders in the event that the lending company…

Investigative Interviewing: Getting To The Truth

One of the six most important ways we assess P2P lending companies is through interviews. (The others are email Q&As; getting data and documents from them; background research and register/database checks; secret shopping/contacting customers and suppliers; and consulting external specialists, such as lawyers or accountants.)…

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! You can find out true costs of lending through various P2P lending companies elsewhere on 4thWay and we’ll show you where further below. But, firstly, here’s how…

Can My Business Lend Through P2P Lending Sites?

UK Limited companies and Limited Partnerships are allowed to lend through P2P lending websites. The ones we know of where this is allowed are: Assetz Exchange*/** AxiaFunder*/**. CapitalStackers*/**. CP Capital. CrowdProperty.** Downing Crowd**. EstateGuru. Folk2Folk. Invest & Fund*/**. Kuflink*/**. LandlordInvest. Lendwise*/**. Proplend*/**. SoMo*/**. Sourced Capital.** Limited…

What Do We Make Of The P2P Lending Companies’ Wind-Down Plans?

Sometimes P2P lending companies close down or shift away from being P2P businesses. When they do, you want to see loans repaid in an orderly fashion. That’s why they have plans for this scenario in advance. These plans are intended to make it highly probable…

Which P2P Lending Sites Offer FSCS Protection On Unlent Cash?

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…

Crowd2Fund Late Accounts And “Strike-Off” Threat

Update on 12th August 2023: Crowd2Fund’s accounts have now been filed and the strike-off action discontinued. Details of its accounts here. You’ve not heard anything from us on Crowd2Fund for a while. Crowd2Fund hasn’t been in a position to provide detailed data to us to…

Lande’s 4thWay PLUS Rating Re-Confirmed

Lande* has re-established its data pipeline and so we’ve reassessed its 4thWay PLUS Rating. Despite quite a few more loans falling late or turning bad as its history has been maturing, it has easily maintained its 3/3 “Exceptional” 4thWay PLUS Rating. Its high interest rates…

3 Huge P2P Lending Mistakes You’re Making Now

We talk to 4thWay users a lot directly, and we get your emails and survey results from you. What we find is that lenders are making the same mistakes over and over again – and frankly it’s worrying us. While the P2P lending sites really…

Fend Off Peer-To-Peer Lending Fraud & Incompetence – A Checklist

In China, the number of websites offering lending platforms reached more than 2,000. For a long time, after that, 80 of them were being closed down every month due to peer-to-peer lending fraud or incompetence. The UK is far from China in more ways than…

House Prices Aren’t Impacting P2P Lending

Falls in house prices in seven of the past 10 months (according to both Halifax and Nationwide) have not perceptibly impacted overall annualised lending results at P2P lending platforms. While price changes can have delayed effects, the future also looks very healthy for lenders using…

Brief Update On Lande

We’ve had to temporarily take Lande’s 4thWay PLUS Rating down. Unfortunately, due to illness, Lande’s not been able to provide us with the data we need to keep assessing it on anything like the regular basis that we require. I’ve been informed that Lande will…

The P2P Lending Accounts Offering Powerful Extra Protections

The main ways that peer-to-peer lending providers protect you from losses are really important. They involve assessing the borrowers properly and setting interest rates appropriately. For property lending, it also means assessing the property put up as security correctly. On top of that, you as…

Which P2P Lending Companies Have Good Character?

P2P lending companies are run by people, so lenders rely on them for getting satisfactory lending results. Their character is always going to be of interest, especially in terms of personality traits that can increase or decrease the risks to you. By “good character”, I’m…

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.

*Commission, fees and impartial research: our service is free to you. 4thWay shows dozens of P2P lending accounts in our accurate comparison tables and we add new ones as they make it through our listing process. We receive compensation from Assetz Exchange and CapitalStackers and other P2P lending companies not mentioned above either when you click through from our website and open accounts with them, or to cover the costs of conducting our calculated stress tests and ratings assessments. We vigorously ensure that this doesn't affect our editorial independence. Read How we earn money fairly with your help.

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