There was an article in the Financial Times this week about bonds (High time for greed to yield to fear). It was very oblique and unclear, since it was largely quoting analysts and investment banks, all of whom, in my experience and opinion anyway, generally refuse to stick…
Landbay* is a P2P lending website that allows you to lend your money to experienced buy-to-let investors. CrowdLords is not P2P lending. It’s being a buy-to-let investor yourself, albeit as part of a crowd of landlords sharing a property. Note that CrowdLords is for people…
The Sunday Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper, recently had an article that started like this: “Is peer-to-peer lending out of control? There’s certainly some cause for concern.” It cited the industry’s rapid growth as one of the reasons for this worry. To back this up, it quoted…
With the growth of peer-to-peer lending websites there are a few things that we individual lenders need to be sure of before we invest our hard earned money. 1. How P2P lending websites assess borrowers Critical to achieving a decent return is understanding the true…
Thanks to David and UK Bond Network for letting us pinch this educational article from their own blog. Legal covenants are of vital importance to investors when investing in debt of any kind – be it personal loans, business loans (including minibonds), corporate bonds (as issued…
I interviewed CapitalStackers‘* Steve Robson, Director, who filled me in on some interesting aspects about the property P2P lending website. Firstly, I should note that CapitalStackers’ minimum lending amount is £5,000. The service is generally only available to people classed as sophisticated investors or high-net worth,…
This is the first article in a new series for 4thWay®, covering investment on the edges of P2P lending. That means alternative ways to invest in the P2P lending sector without lending directly to borrowers yourself. These might either help you spread your risks, manage…
Adapted from 4thWay co-founder Neil Faulkner’s new book on P2P lending strategy, read why it is that you should question everything when investing. Part of the reason you’re reading this website is that you’re a natural sceptic. It’s your job as an investor – for…
With bond interest rates plummeting to near zero, it is only a matter of time before a lot of people lost money, as was explained in yesterday’s FT article Bond market fireworks flash warning signals. When bond interest rates drop, it means people are paying too…
For most peer-to-peer lending companies, a bad debt amounting to a mere 0.15% is not noteworthy. But it’s different for Lending Works. Because this is the first time it has suffered at least one bad loan. Prior to now, its 16-month record of nearly 2,000 loans had…
Research by Cambridge University shows the UK is now storming ahead of its European neighbours in its acceptance and use of alternative finance, with the market swelling to £1.9bn in 2014. Although this growth is great, its speed, together with the newness of the sector,…
CrowdProperty took five months to get its first deal completed, but just five weeks to do its second. Clearly, it’s speeding up. New P2P lending websites can offer interesting opportunities. The interest rates tend to be higher, so if you can satisfy yourself that the…
Zopa latest: Speed of getting money on loan: up Proportion of loans accepted: up Riskier borrowers: up Interest rates: stable Zopa has taken steps to help get lenders’ money on loan faster and to stabilise rates, and set a scene which could lead to…
Welcome back to the third course of my 4th way. For my returning readers you’ll know that I began to look at the idea of venturing into P2P lending in Follow Me As I Learn to P2P. When I had reduced my selection down to…
Sometimes I read in the financial pages what some commentators are saying on P2P lending and I’m quite unimpressed. The general message seems to be that if you dip your toe in with a small investment, you’ll learn quickly that it’s safe, and then you can go all…
Buying buy-to-let properties is a very different investment to lending to buy-to-let investors. But both are great investment opportunities in very different ways. Landbay is a P2P lending websites that offers loans to landlords with tenanted residential properties. 4thWay® rates it as one of the safest P2P…
UK Bond Network will be the next P2P lending website to be added to the 4thWay® comparison tables this week. UK Bond Network is for high-net worth investors or those classed as “sophisticated” only. If that’s not you then you should probably look away now. The most…
The loan acceptance rate can be incredibly useful for lenders like you and me, since it can be a strong indication that a P2P lending opportunity has strict borrower selection standards. If a P2P lending website accepts no more than around 20% of applicants, rejecting…
Lenders can use the bad-debt rate to see how low bad debts have been in the past on a P2P lending webste. An average annual bad-debt rate of 0.5% during a moderate or good economic backdrop is very low, for example. Any bank would be…
The Bank of England is asking the UK’s biggest banks and building society to perform stress tests again. Like last year, the tests are not as extreme as the events of 2008-10. The argument is that that period was seen as a rare event that only happens…
