If you’ve got a question for us, we always try to find time to give you a comprehensive answer, so please get in touch at contact@4thWay.co.uk Question from David, 4thWay user Wanting to know if I can open an ISA that will allow me to…
How did I get here? It’s a question that many investors – in any investment – might be asking quicker than you think. Let me get to the point in a laborious and roundabout route. I’ve always been a fan of stock-market tracking funds: index…
Assetz Capital has just introduced a new account allowing lenders like you and me to remove our money easily, called the Assetz Capital Quick Access account. The business and short-term property loans P2P lending website believes that this will enable us to exit loans within 24 hours…
This article is about how much you should split between savings accounts/cash ISAs and peer-to-peer lending, and also shares if you want more diversification further up the risk scale. I also discuss the money you might put into buying your own home. Those are what…
When you look deep into the detail of Funding Circle’s* loans, you get some interesting patterns. Today, I compared the two biggest types of loans: “expansion/growth capital” versus “working capital” loans to see how they compare on both bad debts and interest rates. Is one riskier…
Last updated on 6 September 2015. There’s not much point lending your money if you can get similar rates with savings accounts and cash ISAs! That’s why it makes sense to compare the P2P lending interest rates to the very best savings accounts and cash ISAs (tax-free…
Having lived in Germany for seven years, I’d like to make a small comparison before getting to the point. While Germans are all individuals like the rest of us, their culture has developed a few very different ways of looking at things. As far as I’m concerned,…
If you lend to Funding Circle* A+ business borrowers you can currently earn more than at RateSetter, Lending Works* and Zopa, but with a better recent record of repayment than RateSetter and Zopa. Yet Funding Circle doesn’t have a bad-debt provision fund and the others…
My colleague Neil wrote about how we need to defend ourselves from financial disasters in 2 Rules To Lend Easily And Be Safe From Recessions. Today I want to look at another big item that we need to protect ourselves from: greedy P2P lending websites….
Our research shows that if you: Stick to low risk lending Spread your money across several P2P lending websites and lots of loans Be willing and able to lend and re-lend for five years, and Don’t lend when interest rates sink too low Then your…
Eddyyy intends to start up as a peer-to-peer lending company offering personal loans. We have little information about it and so we don’t know if it will get off the ground, so I shan’t be reviewing it today. But what we do know is its…
See the hidden costs in peer-to-peer lending on four peer-to-peer lending websites covering five different types of loans. Also read how the overall P2P lending costs compare to other investments. While many peer-to-peer lending websites (aka marketplace lenders) claim to have no lending fee, and others…
We were just pondering that question when we noticed Lending Works‘* recent blog on this exact same subject. Here it is, written by Mike Todt. It’s worth reading to the end. Beneath it is my own (Neil Faulkner here) brief, candid opinion. A few weeks ago, Bank…
The more risky an investment is, the longer you need to have in mind to invest. And you need to keep investing regularly throughout that period to really get your risks down to a sensible level for the rewards involved. Most lenders like you and…
Peer-to-peer lending is not quite like any other investment. It’s really like being your own personal bank. But you don’t do all the hard work! No. Because you own the bank. So others do most of the work for you. Setting up your bank As…
P2P lending website ArchOver*, which does secured and insured business loans, has just launched its secondary market, so that you can now buy and sell existing loans. However, it is highly unusual and so it requires explaining. Two key facts Before I waste your time,…
Savings accounts are ideal for short-term savings. The only real risk in the short term of a big sudden loss to your savings is if the UK government is suddenly unable to pay its debts and it decides to swipe them from people who have…
A leak to the Financial Times has revealed that Funding Circle* is planning to be the first P2P lending website to create its own investment fund – and it’s got some very interesting features, so pay attention. It’s called the Funding Circle SME Income Fund. Here’s what…
If you’re asking yourself: “Are interest rates high enough on these development loans?” “Are bad debts low enough on these personal loans?” “Is pawnbroking P2P lending too high a risk?” “Is the loan to value low enough on these buy-to-let mortgages?” “Do these guys really have…
Higher lender demand forced RateSetter interest rates downwards in the first two weeks of July, as RateSetter tempted more lenders to lend more money with a cashback offer. (See RateSetter’s Interest Rates Tank.) Now the cashback deal is over, interest rates in most – but not…
