Kuflink Review
A profitable property lending record since 2011 and highly satisfactory lending results
Kuflink's Auto-Invest 2 Year Account received an Exceptional 3/3 4thWay PLUS Rating.
This account has been paying 9.78% interest.
The Kuflink website often shows higher lending rates than we do, but we use the annualised calculation that most closely matches the rates we show for other P2P lending companies. This makes it easier to compare and it's more realistic.
Visit Kuflink* or keep reading the Kuflink Review.
What does Kuflink do?
Kuflink* does loans to property developers as well as to property owners requiring short-term (bridging) loans. All loans are secured against the properties for your benefit as lenders.
The majority of loans are against residential property, although it also does some lending against commercial property – shops, hotels, offices, warehouses and the like.
When did Kuflink start?
Established in 2016, Kuflink lenders have lent £390 million as of February 2025. Kuflink has a prior business operating since 2011 that has been successfully lending in the same kinds of loans.
What interesting or unique points does Kuflink have?
Kuflink’s loans fit in an interesting space for bridging and development in terms of the risks. Many loans are extended substantially before finally repaying. Yet it has a good record, showing a low proportion of loans that go bad for six months or more, relative to the wider market. And it’s shown to have an excellent recovery of bad debt.
Few loans have had to write off any of the debt, with Kuflink so far taking the full cost of that.
Kuflink takes the first loss of up to 5% on loans in its manual lending account, called Select Invest:
- It takes the first 5% loss on any loans that are more than 70% loan-to-value.
- It takes the first loss of 2.5% on loans between 65% and 70% loan-to-value.
- It takes no first loss below 65% loan-to-value.
In practice, first loss cover even of 5% is not a vast amount, but it’s good to see that Kuflink actually puts skin-in-the-game by lending in the same loans as you a lot of the time.
In its auto-lending accounts, its first strategy when a loan is going wrong is to look to take over the loan by moving lenders onto a new loan. Although that isn’t legally agreed or guaranteed, it could be useful sometimes in helping lenders to maintain their full interest rates.
The combined result of these facts is that lenders have still had zero losses, even after Kuflink* has built a large history of loans.
How good are its loans?
About some core borrower requirements
The maximum that a Kuflink* borrower is usually allowed to borrow is 75% of the property’s valuation. Around seven out of every 100 loans breach this limit. Overall, that’s not the best, but quite normal.
However, very sensibly – even necessarily – Kuflink sometimes requires the borrower to secure the loan against a second property if it’s coming close to this maximum. And Kuflink limits the maximum to 65% if it doesn’t know the area well. Combined, these standards are good for these kinds of loans, and we have seen sufficient results to show that Kuflink’s RICS surveyors are valuing properties sensibly.
The borrower needs a clear exit strategy – a clear way to repay the entire loan at the end. This is a standard, essential requirement that we’d expect to see.
If loans pay regular interest, the ability to meet those interest payments is also important to Kuflink. So far, the data shows that these loans are also doing well, although, for this sub-segment of Kuflink’s loans, a little more history is needed before we can do any sensible, risk-based calculations.
More about Kuflink’s development loans
Developers can usually borrow up to 70% of the starting property valuation and further borrowing as development progresses may not exceed 70% of the expected sale price of the property. These are very sensible standards.
While Kuflink* does allow some first-time developers to borrow smaller amounts, the quality of all its loans that have elements of refurbishment, conversion or development are in line with the rest of its loans, with the results of these loans even being a tick better.
Junior lending
When you lend in a junior loan it means you’re not first in the queue to get your money back. If the borrower struggles to repay and the property needs to be forcibly sold, another lender, such as a high-street bank, will get their money first.
Two or three out of every 10 Kuflink loans, and 20% to 30% of the amount lent, has historically been junior loans. This remains the case today.
However, Kuflink’s historical record on junior loans is pretty comparable to its senior lending. As we get a bit deeper into 2025, I note that, of the junior loans it approved two years ago or more, just a couple ended up with some minor write-offs. Those losses were paid for in full by Kuflink.
Commercial lending
Gradually the loanbook has been getting safer in terms of a shift towards an even higher proportion of residential. In its early years, a third of its loans involved some commercial property. In the past 12 months, just a fifth of its lending has involved commercial property.
That said, while residential is considered safer for good reason, the performance of its commercial-property loans have been well in line with its residential loans.
Loan extensions and renewals perform well
To watch that bad debts aren’t being hidden from you, you always have to keep a very close eye on loans that get extended continually or that are constantly rolled into new loans.
When I say “you”, I really mean 4thWay does, because the general public, and even active lenders logged into their P2P lending dashboards, rarely get the detailed data and documentation they need to do that.
Kuflink* rolls or extends loans more than some competitors, sometimes officially extending them two or three times.
But their history of these loans ultimately being repaid in full is excellent. There have been just a handful of small bad debts among all those loans, totalling less than 0.1% of the amounts lent over eight years. (Kuflink covered those bad debts itself.) All the rest were repaid in full.
To provide compensation to lenders for extended loan terms Kuflink passes on higher lending rates to you, in some cases.
No “leaping” into bigger loans again
Kuflink has sometimes had some startlingly large loans that are rather disproportionate for the overall amount being lent. I’ve been reassured that they won’t be “leaping” into that again.
How much experience do Kuflink’s key people have?
The family business Kuflink* demonstrably has over a decade’s experience with these loans and it has brought more people in with substantial skills. It has a large pool of people with different experiences in bridging, development and property surveying.
My assessment of its key people are that they have sufficient experience to conduct the key lending operations of its business, from approving loans to recovering bad debts. I’m very satisfied with experience in the department that recovers bad debts.
In 2025, Rawinder Singh Binning was appointed as CEO, replacing Narinder Khattoare. Rawinder was head of compliance at Kuflink for 13 years, so I’m already very familiar with his impact.
“Compliance” is basically ensuring that the key lending operations are conducted with integrity, following laws, regulations and internal policies that are shaped by the compliance team, while reducing risks of money laundering among other things.
Kuflink review: lending processes
The data it provides is very comprehensive, suggesting an interest in numbers that, while not essential for all kinds of bridging lending, does correlate with the lower- to middle-risk end. Even so, I believe Kuflink could improve its results further by making more ratios and hard lines central to its underwriting policy, as well as more emphasis on quantitative factors.
Kuflink is not what we at 4thWay between ourselves call a “swinger”, which means a P2P lending platform that is willing to approve loans without solid property valuations, in return for higher interest rates or smaller loan amounts compared to the estimated valuation of the property. Kuflink’s data and its explanation of its processes show that it prefers to err towards tighter standards.
Although Kuflink has some surveying experience of its own, it always requires an independent valuation of property security.
Kuflink has explained that it’s important for it that a borrower can meet regular interest payments, if they have been agreed for the loan. (Most loans don’t have regular interest. The loan and all the interest is repaid at the end.)
Kuflink could probably lower the chances of loans falling late a little bit further if it was stricter about the borrower having experience, although this might also be at the cost of less lending and lower interest rates. Borrower experience is not as crucial when Kuflink’s other core standards are high.
Critically for these kinds of loans, Kuflink* reacts fast when they fall late, initiating formal recovery proceedings 30 days after a loan goes late and attempting – frequently with success – to recover the debt within about another 30 days.
Kuflink’s credit committee – which makes the final decision on whether to approve or reject a loan – includes some independent directors. Kuflink’s independent directors have probably made mistakes in some other areas, but their relevant experience and the overall performance so far is supportive of the committee’s record in signing off loans.
How good are Kuflink’s interest rates, bad debts and margin of safety?
With Kuflink’s eyes largely focused on the property security and not as much on the borrower, this explains the fact that some loans turn bad – albeit temporarily.
Kuflink* has enough history to show convincingly that almost all its loans recover in full if they turn bad. Even if recovery of bad debt ultimately turns out to be shockingly bad and far worse than I expect, the bad debt will still be low.
Losses since the platform launch in 2016 have barely hit 1-in-100 loans, with each of those typically losing 20%. Kuflink has so far taken the full hit on all those bad debts. If individual lenders had taken the cost of that bad debt, the overall lending results would still have been excellent, only lowering average annual lending returns by less than 0.1 percentage points.
Most bridging, in our experience, is either super safe with just about zero loans even temporarily suffering bad debts, or they have high bad debts. Here, we have something a little different, with low numbers of loans turning bad, combined with excellent recovery.
Kuflink’s lending rates of 7.87%-9.78%, depending on the lending account you use, are very satisfactory. Do however see the section below “Lender interest rates shown on Kuflink’s website are not appropriate”.
I would feel especially comfortable with lenders choosing the higher-rate accounts and yet still committing to lend for several years. Because you still get the same level of underlying risk of bad debt in the loans, even though you’re earning more.
Our international banking standard stress tests of Kuflink’s loan book, using a much stricter version of the Basel standards than global banks are required to use, indicates that Kuflink* lenders should still make money overall when lending through a one-in-100-year recession and property crash similar to the 2008 crisis. This gives lenders an excellent margin of safety.
For me, the biggest risk Kuflink lenders face is a few oversized loans. Four loans currently account for about one-fifth of all that is outstanding. While losses from several of those loans collapsing at once would still just about be tolerable to lenders, large loans can make all forecasting less reliable. I’m relieved for the assurance from Kuflink that it is not going to rush into such loans in future. We shall monitor this, of course.
Has Kuflink provided enough information to assess the risks?
Kuflink* recently closed the gaps in the information it provides 4thWay, now filling in all the blanks and providing detailed loan data and access to key people. For us, the information we get is exceptional.
For you, it has also improved its website statistics for the public. (See the “Statistics” link at the bottom of the Kuflink website. )Its marketing language on its website has also improved since 4thWay last checked. The level of information now provided is complete and highly reassuring.
However Kuflink has had substantial issues in properly communicating important details on individual loans to its lenders. And that’s both before lenders put money into specific loans of their choosing and also during the course of those loans.
It really needs to do a lot better on that, because it has been, in my opinion, all too easy for lenders to end up lending in a loan that is either a little riskier or performing worse than it appeared from the information available.
It’s my firm opinion this is down to lack of resources being put into this, rather than a deliberate effort to conceal information. And I’m not worried about the state of the loan book for lenders. Even so, it better start communicating better.
Is Kuflink profitable?
In 2025, Kuflink is now in its fifth consecutive year of substantial profits, helping make it one of the top three P2P lending providers based on financial health.
Is Kuflink a good investment?
Kuflink is a good investment. I like the spot where Kuflink is. It’s not the high-risk bridging and development lending that involves huge numbers of problem loans that you hope will be offset by high interest rates. And it’s not the absolute safest of its kind, which can often pay unappealing interest rates. It’s above that level of risk, but with very attractive interest rates.
As usual, although 4thWay has a fantastic record, when you put your money into attractive investments not all of them will work out as well as you hoped, which is why you still spread your money around elsewhere too.
What is Kuflink’s minimum lending amount and how many loans can I lend in?
The minimum lending amount at Kuflink* is £1,000 (but temporarily reduced to £500 until 6th May 2025). Thereafter you can add in increments of £500. The minimums also apply to ISA transfers.
If you’re using auto-lend, your money is still split across loans, i.e. if you put in the minimum amount it won’t all go to one loan. Kuflink will proportionally spread your money across all loans in the pool and will reallocate your funds as loans are repaid or new loans enter the pool.
In manual lend, it’s £1,000 in the first loan (£500 till 6th May) and then you can put in £500 (or more) into each further loan.
There are exceptions to the £500 minimum rule in both manual and auto-lend accounts:
- If you use an auto-lend account and you’re getting less than £500 back at the end, you can still lend it out again through auto-reinvestment. However, if you don’t do this and have it transferred to your Kuflink cash account (or “wallet”) then you’ll need to top it up to £500 to lend it again.
- If you have residual cash from previous ISAs under £500 then Kuflink will currently still enable you to lend this.
- If the outstanding amount of loans currently available to lend in is under £500, you can lend that remaining amount.
- Finally, when buying and selling existing loans on Kuflink’s secondary market, you can still trade amounts if they are for under £500.
In auto-lend accounts, Kuflink* tells us it more or less spreads your money across its entire pot of loans – and there are a lot of them.
Text on the website suggests a little more ambiguity, as it will now re-allocate your funds “as we see fit in order to give you exposure to a range of Borrowers and Loan Parts as new opportunities arise. There will be specific trigger events, such as new loans entering the pool and repayment of loans”.
If you lend manually by putting similar amounts in each loan you lend in, the average amount you’re lending compared to the property valuation is just above 60%, which is fantastic.
If you lend proportionally across all loans based on their size – as you will in auto-lend – then it skews on the heavier size, as larger loans tend to be against worse security. That said, it’s far easier to spread across a lot of loans using auto-lend, which itself is a strong defence against losses.
Does Kuflink have an IFISA?
Kuflink’s auto-lend accounts are available as IFISAs.
Can I sell Kuflink loans to exit early?
You can sell loans early for a 0.25% fee in Kuflink’s manual lending account, Select Invest. With its auto-lend accounts, you wait till the end of their agreed terms.
What if Kuflink closes down?
Kuflink remains one of the few P2P lending companies to provide every piece of information and data we want regarding its wind-down plans. Read about it here.
What more do I need to know?
Earn interest from day one
You earn interest from the time you pledge your money. So, if it takes a while for a loan to be fully funded, this doesn’t prevent you earning interest in the meantime.
Improved governance
In prior years, Kuflink* was in the news after being criticised by its former auditors for its 2019 accounts for accounting and governance. It made huge changes since then and company accounts in all later years show a clean bill of health from its new auditors.
Transferring money out of your IFISA
Unusually, you pay a fee for transferring your money out of the Kuflink IFISA to another ISA provider. That fee is £35. On a £5,000 pot, that’s the equivalent of a 0.7% fee. Smaller pots will be most impacted by the fee.
Lender interest rates shown on Kuflink’s website are not appropriate
Details on the interest you earn on Kuflink’s website are somewhat confusing and they don’t always make it clear which of its lending accounts the information applies to. I’m going to clarify all this for you now.
Worse than that, for some months now, Kuflink has stated lender interest rates in a way that is highly unusual in the investing world – even inappropriate – and I could well understand why lenders might believe they’re earning more than they really are.
Kuflink’s response to our queries about their advertised rates were disappointing. Indeed, at one point it doubled down, making it even harder to find the annualised lender interest rates calculated in the way that most other P2P lending companies do it, which in my long experience is the widely accepted (and only sensible) way across all types of investments.
Here’s the bottom line:
| Lending account | Rate shown mostly on the Kuflink website | Annualised rate calculated the normal way |
| Kuflink 1 Year Term (auto-lend) | “Up to” 9.00% | Up to 9.00% |
| Kuflink 2 Year Term (auto-lend) | “Up to” 10.26% | Up to 9.78% |
| Kuflink 3 Year Term (auto-lend) | “Up to” 8.51% | Up to 7.87% |
You’ll see that the different calculations impact the two longer-term auto-lend accounts, but not the one-year account. Its manual lending account is also not affected.
Topsy-turvy lending rates
Kuflink tinkers a lot with its lending rates, so that there is no correlation between whether the shortest, middle or longest auto-lend account pays the most. Currently indeed, the middle one lasting two years pays more than the one-year or three-year accounts.
It’s paying 9.78% if you commit to two years and just 7.87% (after 4thWay’s reality adjustments) on its three-year lending account, but just 9.00% on its one-year account.
Rates depend on the borrowers, supply-and-demand and the direction of interest rates as steered by the Bank of England.
We monitor these rate movements for anomalies that can’t be explained satisfactorily. Currently, we see no evidence here of any issue or conflict of interest.
When you earn interest on top of interest, it’s not protected by security
Just one more small thing on the interest you earn.
When you earn interest, and then earn interest on top of that interest, it’s called compounding.
Due to the unusual way Kuflink compounds your interest in the two-year and three-year auto-lend accounts, the compounded interest earned by you is not secured by the borrowers’ property. Even so, this is a very minor point as it only exposes you to a very small amount of non-secured lending.
Kuflink March 2025 news
We don’t normally do news sections in our reviews, but I think it’s appropriate in this case just to summarise some temporary goings-on:
Higher lending rates – for how long?
Kuflink has just increased its lending rates across its three different auto-lend accounts.
Now ranging from 7.87%-9.78%, these are up roughly one percentage point for the 2025 ISA season, which runs roughly till 6th May. It effectively means that for every £1 you would have earned previously you’ll earn about £1.10 now.
While the boosted rate on each auto-lend account is time limited, you lock it in for the agreed lending term of one, two or three years, so you won’t see the rate come down again on that lent money just weeks after you put it in.
Minimum initial lending amount has come down – for a bit
If you’re yet to put any money in, the first time you lend you can put in as little as £500 before 6th May. That’s down from £1,000.
That applies to the first loan you lend in when choosing individual loans, or it applies to the first amount you put into an auto-lend account when you want to have your money automatically split across most outstanding loans.
Thereafter, you can lend in additional amounts as low as £500 – which is not new. (Note that Kuflink’s minimum amounts don’t apply when buying parts of existing loans from other lenders through Kuflink’s secondary market.)
The most notable items from our March 2025 reassessment
Update on loan losses
Losses since the online platform launch in 2016 have barely hit 1-in-100 loans, with each of those typically losing 20%. Kuflink has so far taken the full hit on all those bad debts. If individual lenders had taken the cost of that bad debt, the overall lending results would still have been excellent, only lowering average annual lending returns by less than 0.1 percentage points.
Commercial lending
Gradually the loanbook has been getting safer in terms of a shift towards an even higher proportion of residential. In its early years, a third of its loans involved some commercial property. In the past 12 months, just a fifth of its lending has involved commercial property.
That said, while residential is considered safer for good reason, the performance of its commercial-property loans have been well in line with its residential loans.
New boss
In 2025, Rawinder Singh Binning was appointed as CEO, replacing Narinder Khattoare. Rawinder was head of compliance at Kuflink for 13 years, so I’m already very familiar with his impact. “Compliance” is basically ensuring that the key lending operations are conducted with integrity, following laws, regulations and internal policies that are shaped by the compliance team, while reducing risks of money laundering among other things.
Kuflink remains one of the more financially sound providers
In 2025, Kuflink is now in its fifth consecutive year of substantial profits, helping make it one of the top three P2P lending providers based on financial health.
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.
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The 4thWay® PLUS Ratings are calculations developed by professional risk modellers (someone who models risks for the banks), experienced investors and a debt specialist from one of the major consultancy firms. They measure the interest you earn against the risk of suffering losses from borrowers being unable to repay their loans in scenarios up to a serious recession and a major property crash. The ratings assume you spread your money across hundreds or thousands of loans, and continue lending until all your loans are repaid. They assume you lend across 6-12 rated P2P lending accounts or IFISAs, and measure your overall performance across all of them, not against individual performances.
The 4thWay PLUS Ratings are calculated using objective criteria that can be measured and improved on over time, although no rating system is perfect. Read more about the 4thWay® PLUS Ratings.
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