Benjamin Graham was a highly intelligent investor who basically invented the most successful way to invest in shares. He didn’t go for all the complexity of many of his other colleagues in his industry. Just like all highly successful long-term investors that we know of,…
Getting your money back when using auto-lend Some P2P lending accounts and IFISAs spread your money across loans automatically or have similar “auto-bid” or “auto-lend” features. When it comes to getting your money back from these sorts of accounts, a 4thWay user summed up the…
What is a secondary market? A secondary market allows you to buy and sell existing loan parts to or from other lenders. You might do this for bigger profits, to exit early or for other reasons. The only realistic way to leave P2P lending loans…
We’ve ranked the P2P lending providers in a few different ways on the 4thWay website, either in best-of articles or in our comparison tables, which can themselves be sorted in three different ways. And we’ve covered the details in reviews for them. But we had…
While the vast majority of individual lenders have made money on their loans every year since P2P lending started in 2005, some have not done so well. Alternatively, some might have been surprised by other outcomes, such as seeing their money trapped in for longer…
We have a guide on 4thWay that shows how you can open as many IFISAs as you want in the space of a few months, saving you on tax and helping you spread your money very quickly. But you might have to educate someone to…
In assessing lending risks, it’s useful when you uncover contradictory information on a P2P lending company. So, today, I’m going to list a variety of very typical contradictions that we see, using real-life examples. I’ll help you learn how to spot them and give you…
One of the key things to understand when putting your money into a lending account is the competence and character of the people behind the P2P lending company in question. While I can’t distill all 4thWay’s acquired knowledge and method for scrutinising key people, I’m…
For fast-growing startup companies – which includes most P2P lending sites – being profitable isn’t usually the best measure of whether it will succeed. This is especially the case since most of them are not profitable. And you don’t expect them to be. They need and…
Peer-to-peer lending (including P2P IFISAs) is classified as one of the safer alternative investments, which is why it’s available to all who wish to invest by lending directly to other people, businesses and property owners. But, since it’s still a relatively new form of investing,…
Most peer-to-peer lending websites and IFISA providers allow anyone to lend. If you’re a beginner, they want you to commit not to lend more than 10% of your savings and investment pot across all your P2P loans. If you want to lend more than that,…
Neil Faulkner, 4thWay’s co-founder and Head of Research, has picked his top eight IFISA picks, based on his assessment of the risks and rewards. They include: Five selections that are easy to use and are good for both entry-level and expert-level investors. Five selections that…
Most people benefit from automatic tax breaks on peer-to-peer lending as explained in our guide: How Is Peer-to-Peer Lending Taxed? However, not everyone does, which can make lending through a pension attractive. And there are other advantages to lending in a pension. There are also cons though,…
You may have noticed that the lending rates you can earn are higher when a peer-to-peer lending website or IFISA first launches. Then, peer-to-peer lending rates fall over the following years to more sensible levels. The five possible causes of falling peer-to-peer lending rates are:…
Before you start to assess a P2P lending website or IFISA provider that does personal loans, it really helps to understand the characteristics and features of personal peer-to-peer lending. In other words: what are you getting into when you lend your money in these loans,…
We try to explain peer-to-peer lending in What Is Peer-to-Peer Lending? However, it can sometimes be easier in an image. So we’ve created one for you called “How Peer-to-Peer Lending Works – For Investors”. Click on it to open it up. There is a mobile-friendly…
Peer-to-peer lending websites and IFISA providers that do not appear to have the correct permission from the financial regulator are the ones that are most likely to turn out to be the real monsters that cause panic, fear and financial loss to individuals. Below, you…
Peer-to-peer lending is lending directly to individuals or businesses, including, sometimes, property owners. IFISAs is usually the same, with the advantage that any interest you earn and gains you make are always tax free. However, there can be a minor catch to watch out for….
You probably think a better question is “Why on Earth would I want to do unsecured business lending when I can do secured lending? It’s a good question. Secured business lending, after all, means that you are lending to a business that has property, equipment,…
Secured business lending is when borrowers have to put up assets as collateral on their loans. Those assets protect the lenders – in this case, I mean individual lenders like you and me, using P2P lending sites. Assets are things of value like properties, machinery,…
