How Much Should You Trust “Award-Winning” P2P Lending Companies?

You’ll have noticed that P2P lending companies sometimes win awards, which are usually awarded by some sort of publication, with or without an independent judging panel. 4thWay, too, regularly wins industry awards for which I am truly very grateful and glad that we get recognised….

IFISA Guide Up to 5th April 2024

We have nagged the taxman’s notoriously tight-lipped officials, and chased down accountants, IFISA providers and even 4thWay’s own skilled experts to give you answers to all your IFISA questions, as well questions you never thought to ask. Here goes: What is an IFISA? An IFISA…

IFISAs: What Are The Risks?

The key risks in IFISAs are: Psychological risk: your own greed and fear. Concentration risk: you don’t spread your money across lots of loans and P2P lending sites. Credit risk: borrowers don’t repay you. Platform risk: the P2P lending site (the “platform”) goes bust and…

UK Peer-to-Peer Lending For Overseas Residents

Here’s our list of P2P lending companies that we are aware of that you can lend through from overseas, i.e. outside the UK. And there’s another list below of those that we know you can’t. In addition to any requirements below, you may only open…

Downing Crowd Review

Downing Crowd’s Senior Property & Renewable Energy Lending is unrated, due to lack of information. These loans have been paying lenders around interest before bad debts. Visit Downing Crowd or keep reading the Downing Crowd Review.  

How To Lend Across Multiple IFISAs In One Year!

As you may know, you can only open one IFISA in a tax year, which runs from the 6th of April to the 5th of April, and this limits your ability to spread your money and the risks across lots of providers. Opening more than…

P2P Lending Beats The Stock Market, Yet Again, In 2023

Last year, in 2023, if you invested in one of the cheapest and best share funds to cover the entire UK stock market, through Vanguard, and you did it directly through them in their own ISA, you’ll probably have made around 6.8%. That’s assuming you…

How The Most Successful Individual Lenders Grow Their P2P Wealth

Over the past month or so, I’ve talked with a couple of dozen investors who use 4thWay’s research. It’s been one of the advantages of growing a wealthy collective of lenders to get better returns while doing something useful to support the proper functioning of…

How Money Lenders Assess Luxury Asset Loan Applications

It was a lot of years ago when we assessed Unbolted’s lending processes, and then lost contact with them for a long time. In summer 2023, however, we’ve received substantial supporting evidence and answers to go along with a relatively short interview on lending processes…

Is Somo Truly P2P Lending?

Peer-to-peer lending is not a regulated phrase. By 4thWay’s definition, any online lending company is peer-to-peer if it structures itself and its loans to offer the same level of protection as direct lending, in order to protect lenders in the event that the lending company…

There’s No Such Thing as “No Lender Fee”

P2P lending costs money for both borrowers and lenders. Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch! You can find out true costs of lending through various P2P lending companies elsewhere on 4thWay and we’ll show you where further below. But, firstly, here’s how…

Which P2P Lending Sites Offer FSCS Protection On Unlent Cash?

Your main protection is that loans and cash are segregated Firstly, lets get a sense of proportion. Because FSCS protection here is actually a very minor point. If you have loans at a P2P lending company or if that site is holding some of your…

Crowd2Fund Late Accounts And “Strike-Off” Threat

Update on 12th August 2023: Crowd2Fund’s accounts have now been filed and the strike-off action discontinued. Details of its accounts here. You’ve not heard anything from us on Crowd2Fund for a while. Crowd2Fund hasn’t been in a position to provide detailed data to us to…

3 Huge P2P Lending Mistakes You’re Making Now

We talk to 4thWay users a lot directly, and we get your emails and survey results from you. What we find is that lenders are making the same mistakes over and over again – and frankly it’s worrying us. While the P2P lending sites really…

Fend Off Peer-To-Peer Lending Fraud & Incompetence – A Checklist

In China, the number of websites offering lending platforms reached more than 2,000. For a long time, after that, 80 of them were being closed down every month due to peer-to-peer lending fraud or incompetence. The UK is far from China in more ways than…

House Prices Aren’t Impacting P2P Lending

Falls in house prices in seven of the past 10 months (according to both Halifax and Nationwide) have not perceptibly impacted overall annualised lending results at P2P lending platforms. While price changes can have delayed effects, the future also looks very healthy for lenders using…

Brief Update On Lande

We’ve had to temporarily take Lande’s 4thWay PLUS Rating down. Unfortunately, due to illness, Lande’s not been able to provide us with the data we need to keep assessing it on anything like the regular basis that we require. I’ve been informed that Lande will…

Which P2P Lending Companies Have Good Character?

P2P lending companies are run by people, so lenders rely on them for getting satisfactory lending results. Their character is always going to be of interest, especially in terms of personality traits that can increase or decrease the risks to you. By “good character”, I’m…

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