At 4thWay® we write all our views, both positive and negative, about P2P lending. We don’t shirk on our responsibility to tell it like it is. With this in mind today I’d like to tell you about why I stick to low-risk P2P lending instead…
What happens when, not if, a provision fund is overwhelmed by bad debts? What makes these reserve funds so solid? Before we look at how some of the bad-debt provision funds will eventually be breached, let’s look at why they’re such tough nuts to crack. Because that just…
All of us at 4thWay® missed a very important detail about Lending Works‘ new interest rates last week. We’re not sure if we all need stronger lens prescriptions or if the consumer loans P2P lending company hadn’t explained its “Lending Works Rate Lock” properly to begin…
Those of you who like to take a bit more risk might try P2P lending company Mintos. Key risks It’s riskier because it’s new, having started in September 2014. It’s also riskier because, well, it’s based in Latvia, so I don’t know much about how…
I put it to the wise community at P2P Independent Forum whether personal guarantees count as secured lending. Before I share their views, here are two unavoidable definitions: Personal guarantee Business borrowers sometimes give their “personal guarantees” that they will repay a business loan using the owners’ and directors’…
For most peer-to-peer lending companies, a late payment is not newsworthy. But it’s different for Wellesley & Co. (4thWay® Risk Rating 12/50, putting it just slightly above savings accounts on the risk scale.) This peer-to-peer lending company has been around since late 2013. Wellesley & Co….
The big news for lenders today is the big jump in interest rates that I noticed this morning. In other significant news, Funding Circle is also celebrating £500 million of loans matched between borrowers and lenders like you – including me. Let’s start with the rate…
Individual lenders need to beware that: The difference between the highest and lowest bidders is typically around 25%. In addition, the majority of lenders bid lower than average, meaning some bidders are getting to take a bigger part of each loan at higher interest rates….
There’s a whole world of ideas out there that we can learn from in our daily lives and that includes how we do P2P lending. A great place to start is to look into the biggest ideas in psychology, accounting, maths, physics, ecology and other disciplines….
I have recently been wondering whether some readers might be concerned by the increasing cosiness between banks and P2P lending companies? Since you’re not a very chatty lot – in terms of completing our article comments – I’m going to take your silence as a…
How do you rebalance your P2P loans and other investments when parts of your portfolio do better than others? For example, when your share investments perform very well and you want to split your wealth more evenly again between shares and P2P loans. Or when…
P2P lending companies use many different ways to lower the risks of lending your money. I’m going to compare two of those ways today: secured lending and bad-debt provision funds. At 4thWay, we take great pains to avoid technical language or at least to explain it clearly…
Recently, Zopa, the P2P lending website that started it all, changed the mix of loans that lenders will have their money allocated to, so that they can get higher rates. At the same time, it removed its rate promise, which means that you could potentially get less…
ArchOver*, the only secured and insured business peer-to-peer lending company, is lowering its lending limit from £5,000 to £1,000 from next week. ArchOver only lends to one grade of borrower, which it calls, variably, “grade A” and “grade A+”, although perhaps its most useful description of…
I want to show you how different savings and investments did in the year just gone by. I’ve not cherry-picked this information to make peer-to-peer lending look good. I’ve looked for precisely the information that I want to know when doing a serious comparison of savings accounts…
It’s like when your say that a piece of art looks beautiful while the man at your side shakes his head in disgust. You’re both entitled to your opinions. Similarly, there are no regulations that define what an A+ loan is, or an A, or any other loan…
Sorry that we missed this somehow, especially since I’m a Lending Works member: its bad-debt provision fund has got better from 1 January. The worst bit is that I was sort of told this by someone working there in December. Anyway… Here’s the situation: Lending…
Unbolted has just launched. It is the newest peer-to-peer lending company to focus on pawnbroking. The company is regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and backed by early investors in Ocado. It is currently not accepting new lenders. It is not unusual for brand new P2P lending…
A common theme in all today’s peer-to-peer lending news articles and blogs on 4thWay has been the see-saw effect: more borrowers make it easier for lenders to lend at better rates while borrowers have to pay more. This encourages more lenders to come, which makes…
P2P lending provision funds set aside to reimburse lenders like you and me when loans go bad are of widely different sizes and some pay out sooner than others. How big is your provision fund? Sources: the P2P lending companies and 4thWay® As you can…
