Guides, Reviews & Tips

Why do peer-to-peer lending? It offers much greater returns than savings with lower risk than the stock market even when you commit your money for less time.

4thWay provides candid information about all the risks and benefits, so that you can decide for yourself whether it's right for you.

Below we show you five great ways to learn about peer-to-peer lending and P2P IFISAs, so you can earn more money, more safely!

The sections on this page

1. Read our 10 Core P2P Lending Guide pages.
2. Compare lending products and IFISAs.
3. Visit our most popular pages at the moment.
4. See P2P lending reviews from 4thWay's specialists.
5. Read our latest research and tips.

Other mini-guides popular with 4thWay users

Can Your Business Lend Through P2P? and How Much to Invest in Peer-to-Peer Lending.

If you get stuck for understanding any jargon, we offer you our Peer-to-Peer Lending And IFISA Glossary.

Plus, we recommend: Critical Checklist – If You’re Not Doing This You’re Putting Yourself At Risk.

Every checkbox in the critical checklist is an absolute basic requirement or you’re taking unnecessary risks that might wipe out all your efforts to select good lending accounts and loans.

Are you doing everything right? See if you can check all the boxes.

Compare lending products and IFISAs

Compare all P2P lending products, including IFISAs or just compare IFISAs.

Visit our most popular pages at the moment

• The IFISA (P2P ISA) Guide.
• The Best Innovative Finance ISAs In 2026.
• P2P lending comparison tables.
• 25 Property Peer-to-Peer Lending Websites.
• How Is Peer-to-Peer Lending Taxed?
• The Best Peer-To-Peer Lending Accounts In The UK 2026.

See P2P lending reviews from 4thWay's specialists

There is probably no better way anywhere on the Web to quickly learn about each individual P2P lending opportunity than by reading reviews from our specialists.

Read our very popular and educational reviews for each P2P lending site by going to the compare page and then clicking on the reviews that interest you, so that you can see other key information side-by-side, such as their 4thWay PLUS Ratings.

Or you can click on the links here if you just want to read individual reviews in peace:

• AxiaFunder Review.
• Blend Network Review.
• CapitalRise Review.
• CapitalStackers Review.
• Crowd2Fund Review.
• CrowdProperty Review.
• Downing Crowd Review.
• FOLK2FOLK Review.
• HNW Lending Review.
• Housemartin Review.
• Invest & Fund Review.
• Kuflink Review.
• LandlordInvest Review.
• Lendwise Review.
• Loanpad Review.
• Proplend Review.
• Somo Review.
• Sourced Capital Review.
• Unbolted Review.

Read our latest research and tips

How P2P Lending Providers Stack Up On Ombudsman Complaints

The ombudsman publishes a database tallying complaints by firm and another database on decisions where the ombudsman had to make a “final decision” to award compensation to customers or not.

How have all the P2P lending providers performed on complaints?

(Plus, we've updated the guide How The Financial Ombudsman Protects Your P2P Lending.)

Testing Housemartin’s Sector Resilience

When demand for services vastly outstrips supply, that usually makes those services safe. But with Housemartin's housing partners funded largely by cash-strapped local authorities, it's no longer so clear cut.

Read how have lenders and Housemartin's four biggest supported housing partners been doing in the current environment.

How To Check The Financial Services Register For Monsters

It's not just the ombudsman on your side, but also the financial regulator. We've updated this guide on how you can use the FCA's online register as one of your tasks when assessing, or reassessing, any P2P lending provider.

Best IFISAs 2026

Hopefully you weren't too late to use up your allowance for the 2025/26 year ending on the 5th of April.

To get your allowance for this new tax year deployed quickly and tax efficiently, here are the best IFISAs again.

Why Aren't LTVs “Guarantees”?

You can lose money even when your loan is protected by a property owned by the borrower that is valued much higher than the loan. How and why does this happen?

Here are five real examples of how you can lose money on loans with good LTVs and how to reduce the risk.

Brief Kuflink Update

There have been no brand new loans for months now, as far as we are aware.

Plus, more on what it means when P2P lending providers receive restrictions from the FCA, as Kuflink has done.

Read on.

Ever heard of Shojin? Well, it's too late now

What does 4thWay know about Shojin, with 16 live loans, going out of business?

What did we think of it before it went bust and what do we think of the prospects for lenders who have outstanding loans at Shojin?

Read our head of research's first thoughts on Shojin going bust.

Which Platforms Currently Have Lots Of Loans Available?

If you're looking to swiftly deploy your money into hundreds – or even thousands – of individual loans, here's a shortlist of providers that collectively offer you that right now.

Better Info For You In The 13 Key Peer-To-Peer Lending Risks

We've added quite a lot of improvements throughout much of this guide to 13 P2P lending risks.

The biggest update is in Risk 4: Losing money due to a P2P lending site going bust.

That section has been updated, now that seven providers (out of more than 100) have gone bust between 2005 and 2026.

Risk 5: Losing money due to a solvent wind-down and risk 13: losing money through cybercrime saw the next most upgrades.

Update On CrowdProperty Profitability & Cash Set Aside To Fund A Wind-Down

Has CrowdProperty set aside too little money for a wind down? Is it making losses of £1.5 million per year? What do its latest accounts, published a few days ago, say?

With that in mind, here's just another quick update on CrowdProperty.

New Member Commended By 4thWay Readers On The Panel Of Peers

We had a lot of users write in to commend Philip Clarke to the Panel of Peers, so I'm delighted to tell you that this experienced individual is representing your interests at 4thWay, holding us democratically accountable for accuracy and trustworthiness.

Please read about all the volunteers from your ranks now on the Panel of Peers.

Where To Compare IFISAs For The New Season

With the new IFISA season on its way, check out 4thWay's IFISA comparison table.

The table is, by default, sorted first by 4thWay PLUS Rating – a measure of risk-reward in the underlying loans that is based on a stricter version of the calculations used by credit-risk specialists at the global banks.

Since there are quite a few ties at the top, the first tiebreaker is the 4thWay Risk Score, which looks solely at the risk side of the underlying loans.

The final tiebreaker is the interest rate.

Whatever you do, read the reviews too, and do your research fully before opening new IFISAs, because ratings can't represent everything or be omnipotent.

…And, since we mentioned our ratings, please read the FAQ Why do you give out so many top 4thWay PLUS Ratings?

CrowdProperty Can Now Buy Lenders Out At Any Time

Some potentially revealing changes to CrowdProperty’s T&Cs.

New sections on wind-down plans and buying out lenders. There's no longer any mention of equal treatment between individual and institutional lenders, no step-in rights, and less transparency on the extra interest you earn when a loan defaults.

Read about all the CrowdProperty changes.

Proplend Reassessed – Impressive Risk-Reward Balance

What you really want from a P2P lending company is more of the boring same.

Well, Proplend's loans are a little less boring than usual; for a change, you lend to borrowers against their tenanted properties, rather than lending against their property development projects.

But, in terms of the quality of loans, and the risk-reward balance, 4thWay's leading specialist is highly confident Proplend continues to be exceptional.

Pretty boring, although the near 8% average rates take the edge off.

There have been few changes to the Proplend Review after a full but unremarkable half-year reassessment.

Nominate Your Fellow 4thWay User To Support Your Interests!

A 4thWay user with the highest RICS membership and long experience funding development projects directly has very kindly volunteered his time to support your interests.

He wants to help to keep 4thWay candid, accurate, trustworthy and 100% on lenders' side!

Please read about Philip Clarke and support his nomination to the Panel of Peers.

List Of All The Peer-To-Peer Lending Companies In The UK

This page with all of the P2P lending companies mostly just serves as a list of the providers, with a description of the type of lending they do. But we keep it up-to-date and share it with you in our newsletter every couple of years, because it seems to be popular despite its simplicity!

Loanpad Review Updated – Cybersecurity Assessment

After the latest full reassessment this month, we find Loanpad's loans remain highly consistent and very reliable with exceptional security.

This update is largely unchanged except for publishing our assessment of its cybersecurity, with help from Sucuri, our security partners.

Go straight to the section on Loanpad's cybersecurity or read the whole Loanpad review.

Fend Off Peer-To-Peer Lending Fraud & Incompetence

The world is changing.

AI is making it much easier to write good, plausible fake website text. And even to code and design more realistic-looking fake websites.

So you need to be a little smarter in how you check for fraud. Before you hand over your personal details or cash!

To that end, we have modified our checklists to fortify you against fraud.

Firstly, we have reprioritised the main checklist so that it contains the most robust signals that AI will still struggle to beat.

We created a second list for other signals that collectively can still be useful.

And we pulled some items out and put them into a new, third checklist. These are the items that are becoming less reliable due to AI.

The Stock Market's Best Year Ever Vs P2P Lending In 2025

The stock market’s gyrations can lead to big gains, such as the massive 24.5% total return for shareholders in 2025.

P2P and online direct lending, in contrast, had a poor year by its standards, with “just” gains of 6.77%.

The medium and long terms are different, however. See the comparison of the FTSE 100 Total Returns Index and the 4thWay P2P And Online Direct Lending (PADL) Index.

Full Disclosure? What CapitalRise Shows Lenders

Read an assessment of the information CapitalRise provides you with to review loans you can take part in, the updates it gives you on their ongoing performance, its email notifications and your options for contacting CapitalRise for more information.

AxiaFunder Review – Reassessed

AxiaFunder continues to pay out 20%+ annualised returns when you fund legal cases for claimants. This review has been updated after another full reassessment.

The biggest changes are in the section on AxiaFunder's lending processes and in the table called Summary of results.

How AxiaFunder Now Blunts Investors' Key Risk

Possibly the biggest risk AxiaFunder users take on is the aftermath when one of the law firms through which you fund legal cases goes bust.

Read the latest in a series of major improvements that AxiaFunder has taken to prevent that risk from happening – or to contain the damage if it does so.

The Peer-To-Peer IFISA Guide

This complete guide on IFISAs has been updated with the latest changes to ISA and tax rules.

This guide, as with every single piece of 4thWay research, is built entirely from original sources and 4thWay's own analysis, using time-consuming research. Please take a look at it, as we know that other sources have plagiarised it!

CapitalStackers – Updated Review

We updated you a few months ago, but most of the outstanding bad debts have now been written off, so this review has been amended after another full, additional reassessment of CapitalStackers.

In particular, you might look to the section “Current events: the conclusion of a major property development downturn”.

Another section with noteworthy updates is “How good are CapitalStackers' interest rates, bad debts and margin of safety?”

HNW Lending – Updated Review

This was another full reassessment, although leading only to small changes throughout most of this review since last time in summer 2025.

The recent wave of bad debts is receding as expected, with more recoveries coming in than new bad debts. A familiar pattern.

You can see the current status of all the bad debts in the updated table in the section “Commentary on both recent and historical bad debts”.

Another highlight is more information in the conflicts of information section, covering some startlingly high rates borrowers might pay to HNW Lending if they miss an interest payment deadline.

Blend – Updated Review

This Blend review is only updated every 18 to 24 months, because we rely largely on publicly available information, having little direct access to Blend's people, and no access to its data and documents. Nevertheless, we've made changes throughout this review.

Housemartin Review – Updated

A new assessment finds that lenders do, as expected, need to be prepared to hold on for the long run to make the very best gains. Much like being a landlord.

Read the updated assessment here.

Somo Review – Updated

4thWay has conducted a full analysis of Somo.

While the focus of this effort was (as usual) largely about assessing the risk-reward balance, the main changes to the published review are to add in some information about the impact of its new first-loss guarantee and about who is repaid first when you lend in different tranches of the same loan.

Here it is.

CrowdProperty Review – Brief Update

A section near the top of the CrowdProperty Review gives you a little update on CrowdProperty's transparency, indications of worsening performance and on more senior departures.

Kuflink In Trouble With The Financial Conduct Authority

Here's what we know, what 4thWay’s head of research thinks, and what lenders should do now.

Read about Kuflink's problems.

Can A P2P Lending Provider Be Too Profitable?

When your chosen P2P lending providers’ profits are very large, is it due to excessive risks or fees?

Here are five things to look at when judging their profits.

Inside Loanpad: The Tech Protecting Your Lending Returns

We have been given a full demonstration of Loanpad's in-house software.

At a time when you want to know that your providers are acting responsibly, find out how safeguarding your lending is done at its best – with technology at its centre.

Latest Full Lande Assessment For Lenders

As the farm lending platform LANDE grows, develops and becomes profitable for the first time, 4thWay's top specialist conducted a highly in-depth assessment of LANDE and the quality of its loans for people lending in them. Read about it here.

Invest & Fund Review – No Longer 4thWay-PLUS Rated

Alas, Invest & Fund has not provided data and answers for six months and it has lost its 4thWay PLUS Rating. Read the latest update to the Invest & Fund Review.

Somo Now Taking First Loss On Most Loans

It's completely overkill. Somo lenders have never lost money on 2,000 loans in Somo's 10-year history.

But it's reassuring when providers put skin in the game.

Read on to find out the value of the new guarantee against losses on the money you lend.

Video Q&A With 4thWay's Neil Faulkner

Laurence Samuels at FinancialThing runs a good show. Take a look at his interview with 4thWay's Neil Faulkner last week. If you make it to the end, perhaps you'll see Neil in his pyjamas…

Critical Checklist – If You’re Not Doing This You’re Putting Yourself At Risk

Every checkbox in this list is an absolute basic requirement or you’re taking unnecessary risks that might wipe out all your efforts to select good lending accounts and loans.

Are you doing everything right? See if you can check all the boxes.