What Individual Lenders Like You Are Planning To Do In 2023

I don't want to stretch this out too long, but a 4thWay user did request we publish the results of our recent survey and I think four of the key findings might be interesting or maybe even educational for you.

Most people are taking efforts to spread their risks

I'm very pleased about this: 35% of the 4thWay users who completed our survey are using six or more P2P lending accounts. 74% have three or more accounts and just 6% have one account.

We've never actually surveyed this before, but it was still clear to us that in our earlier years far too many people were opening just one or two accounts, which is simply not a good idea. These results likely show that 4thWay users can probably now mostly be considered as sophisticated lenders. I'm really pleased about that.

For just the second time there's a slight outflow trend

19% of people are increasing their P2P lending this year. 48% are keeping it about the same. 33% are reducing their lending.

The trend this year, at least for existing lenders, seems inclined towards outflows. This has happened just a couple of times since the industry started. Previously, the outflows reversed quickly, since lending results have held up very well every year since 2005.

Our ongoing assessments show that lending standards across most of the industry remain extremely high and so we have every reason to believe the majority of lenders will continue to have very satisfactory lending results.

I'm so relieved to see how highly you rate us still!

Let me admit something to you: it doesn't matter how hard I work to ensure we at 4thWay are vigorously independent and trustworthy, and act with integrity 100% of the time, and remain hard against external influences, I still always live with a tiny bit of anxiety about receiving any criticism from those who we're really trying to help – meaning you and other individual lenders like you.

We did get some critical comments from you in our survey, which is always painful to read but I always try to ensure we learn from. Yet it's always such a relief to see that you overwhelmingly still really appreciate what we do.

We’re still rated over 9/10 by you, even as our user numbers have grown. Indeed, only three people rated us less than 7/10. Nevertheless, we'll try to learn from all the feedback you've provided – mostly good but some bad – and we'll try to get our rating to 10/10!

Lenders are very active right now

I don't know if this is useful for you to know, but I thought it was interesting.

Our survey found that lenders are planning a lot of changes in terms of opening new accounts, transferring more cash into existing accounts or transferring cash between P2P lending accounts.

I hadn't expected that there would be this much activity. I imagine that a good chunk of this is because some providers aren't currently offering enough opportunities, so it's more or less a necessity to shift money around.

What I'm hoping is that lenders aren't moving cash around all the time seeking better performance. In investing generally, investors get the best results when you investigate your opportunities very thoroughly, so that you feel satisfied and highly confident that you can leave your cash there for a long time, even during difficult times. And you stick with your choices.

Then, there's no need to move money around, which often only leads to greater costs, lost opportunities, and other kinds of issues that end up lowering your overall returns. That's just something for you to think about, perhaps. Make sure you think just as hard about moving cash out as you did about moving it in.

On that note, I think this is a good time to re-recommend you read 4thWay’s 10 P2P Investing Principles.