The 3 P2P Lending Providers With The Best Financial Health

P2P lending companies' financial health is of great interest to lenders and of course to us at 4thWay.

If a P2P lending company is already making money then it lowers the risk that it's going to close. Closure can cause you uncertainty about your loans, as they are wound down and repaid to you.

While more and more providers are turning profitable, there are three that stand out as in particularly good financial health.

As it happens, the three providers with the largest profits in recent times have all also shown stable profits, including during and after the pandemic.

That makes it easy to define what I mean by “best financial health”: I mean the highest pound amounts made after all costs and taxes that have been stably achieved for years in a row.

About my method of selection

I looked at the providers that are extremely open with us and the public, making it actually possible to do an in depth, confident analysis of their risks and rewards through interviews, analysis of their detailed data, documentary evidence and more.

While that is a completely different theme to financial health, it really is of no use to investors how much money a P2P lending company makes if it is not also transparent enough for a deep assessment of the lending risks.

Some platforms' revenue is still low enough that they're allowed to file abbreviated, unaudited details in their public accounts, so I'm not able to measure and compare their profitability. However, usually abbreviated accounts mean losses, or just small profits.

So, here are the “big three” in terms of financial health, in reverse order:

#3 has six or seven figures of profit for the past three years

This one has been profitable since its June 2020 to 2021 year on an annual basis, and from August 2021 on a monthly basis. That's despite the pandemic. It's Kuflink* (read review):

Kuflink's consecutive years of profits

12 months to June…	Profits after costs and taxes
2023	£1,900,000
2022	£730,000
2021	£460,000

It's likely that some key numbers reported in its company accounts, especially its assets and debts, are massively inflated due to an extremely bizarre accounting rule that Kuflink is obliged to follow – whether it wants to or not. But that doesn't impact the above profit figures.

Accounting technicalities aside, it clearly has a strong balance sheet, notably with £3.1 million in cash, up from £2 million the year before that.

Revenue for the year to June 2023 was more than £15 million. That was up on sales the prior year of £10 million and £6 million the year before.

There are no extraordinary items in the accounts that muddy the waters, although Kuflink will benefit from a lot of historical, accrued tax losses, and therefore probably will pay no taxes, for years to come.

As we reported previously, Kuflink had issues with auditors resigning a few years ago, which are now resolved.

#2 has three years with profits over £1 million

This one has nearly £3 million in cash and its assets outweigh its debts by more than £5 million. It's Folk2Folk. (Review coming soon, as we nearly complete our assessment.)

Here are its results since it reached stable profitability.

Folk2Folk's consecutive years of profits

12 months to January…	Profits after costs and taxes
2023	£1,150,000
2022	£1,970,000
2021	£1,110,000
2020	£200,000

Folk2Folk also had £5 million in revenue in both its last two years.

#1 now has more than £5 million in profits

With an unparallelled latest profit of over £5 million, this is millions more than number two on the list.

This one is Somo* (read review).

Somo's past four consecutive years of profits

12 months to March…	Profits after costs and taxes
2023	£5,110,000
2022	£4,620,000
2021	£3,850,000
2020	£3,220,000

Audited filed accounts show strong profits since 2019. Public, filed accounts prior to that were not full or audited. However, Somo plausibly claims it's been profitable since 2015.

In 2022, it had revenue of nearly £19 million, up from £13 million the year before and over £11 million the year before that.

There are no particularly extraordinary items in its accounts, so nothing to potentially indicate its financial health has been relying on one-off events of some kind.

Its assets outweigh its debts by £5,650,000 and it has over £5 million in cash. Now that is true financial health.

More for you

To see the profit or loss in many other P2P lending providers, read Which P2P Lending Sites Are Profitable?

Visit Folk2Folk, Kuflink* and Somo*.

Read the Kuflink Review and the Somo Review. (Folk2Folk Review coming very soon.)

If you're an HNW investor, see how other wealthy investors in the 4thWay community have already now started boosting their returns.