UK P2P Lending Blog

Questions to ask when choosing an IF-ISA

March 18, 2018March 18, 2018
by Neil

It’s getting close to April 5^th: the end of the current UK personal tax year and the last chance to use your £20k ISA allowance. You can split your ISA allowance between more traditional Cash ISAs and Stocks and Shares ISAs and the newer Innovative Finance ISA (IF ISA). However, choosing an IF ISA can be more difficult:

The IF ISA providers are often much smaller with less information or reviews on the net
Most providers only let you invest in loans listed on their own platform – it’s not like a stocks and shares ISA where you largely have access to the same investments whether you open it with the likes of Interactive Investor or Hargreaves Lansdown
The FAQ’s are not always clear and definitely not standardised.

Here are some questions that you should be asking yourself when you are choosing an Innovative Finance ISA provider: Read more “Questions to ask when choosing an IF-ISA” →

P2P News

New Offer: £100 Cashback with Kuflink

March 13, 2018April 11, 2018
by Neil

I had an email from Kuflink today with their latest new customer offer. They are offering £100 cashback for a minimum £200 investment.
Read more “New Offer: £100 Cashback with Kuflink” →

P2P News

Collateral Goes Into Adminstration

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018
by Neil

The pawn-come-property secured lender Collateral has gone into administration. Read more “Collateral Goes Into Adminstration” →

P2P News

Property Moose Suspending Secondary Market

February 21, 2018
by Neil

Property Moose announced last week that they are suspending their secondary market at the end of the month, February 28th.

P2P News

Lending Works rates rise to 6%

January 21, 2018
by Neil

Lending Works are raising their rates from tomorrow (Monday 22nd Jan). The 3 year product will rise from 4.0% to 4.5%, and the 5 year from 5.5% to 6.0%. Read more “Lending Works rates rise to 6%” →

P2P News

Assetz Capital launches IFISA

December 27, 2017
by Neil

Assetz Capital, one of the UK’s largest P2P lending platforms with over £400 million lent out, have launched their IF ISA (Innovative Finance ISA). They are giving access to the same investment products offered to non-ISA accounts:

You can now invest in all of our automatic accounts tax-free, with investment into the Manual Lending Account (MLA) using your ISA allowance available in Q1 2018.

P2P Reviews

Crowd For Angels IF ISA Factsheet

December 16, 2017December 21, 2017
by Neil

Crowd for Angels offer investors up to 12% returns in their crowd-bonds. If you’ve invested with MoneyThing, you’ll notice a popular car-finance borrower who is also listed on Crowd for Angels at the same 12% rate of return. They also offer equity shares in new companies with SEIS and EIS tax relief.

After I saw the release of their Innovative Finance ISA, I got in touch with the team for a short Q&A, but have only just got around to putting it onto P2P blog! Read more “Crowd For Angels IF ISA Factsheet” →

Analysis

Free Euro Transfers with Revolut

December 7, 2017December 7, 2017
by Neil

One of the things that put me off investing in Euro-based P2P lending platforms like Twino or Mintos were the high costs to try them out. Many banks charge transfer fees of £12+. Yes, there are low-cost transfer services like Transferwise, but most European P2P platforms need your first transfer from a bank account to satisfy KYC (know your customer) checks.

After being recommended Revolut from some commentators on a previous post, I stumbled upon a excellent way to transfer money to Euro accounts. This allows almost fee-free transfers to European P2P sites! Read more “Free Euro Transfers with Revolut” →

P2P News

Trouble at Spain’s Largest P2P Lender

November 29, 2017
by Neil

P2P-Banking and El Espanol have broken worrying news over the past couple of days. Comunitae, a large European peer to business lending platform, have detected internal fraud and are suspending activity – probably shutting down.

What Happened?

Comunitae is Spain’s largest P2P lender, and one of the largest Euro-SME lending platforms. Founded in 2008, they’ve raised over €3.5 million in external funding (for platform development). Data from Altfi shows an all time lend of around 45 million euros, 9 million of which was in the year to date.

At the start of November, Comunitae sent out a letter to its investors explaining that they had interally detected fraud affecting 18 guarantors. El Espanol explains that their own risk analyst was complicit in a form of payment fraud with various businesses. Comunitae state in their investor email that there are now criminal proceedings against the employee in question. Read more “Trouble at Spain’s Largest P2P Lender” →

P2P Reviews

LandlordInvest IF ISA Factsheet

November 15, 2017October 1, 2017
by Neil

LandlordInvest offer secured lending investments in BTL mortgages or property bridging loans, paying up to 12% gross. LandlordInvest are now authorised directly by the FCA (not as an Authorised Representative), allowing them to offer the Innovative Finance ISA. Since I haven’t invested with them myself, I asked LandlordInvest to answer a Q&A to provide a basic understanding of their offering for P2P Blog.

Key Facts (General):

Expected Returns: 5-12% per annum.

Historic Returns: Platform completed its first loan in February 2017

When did you launch?: 5 December 2016. Our property-backed IFISA was launched 25 January 2017

Key Facts (IF ISA):

Minimum Investment to open ISA: £100

Minimum Investment per loan/investment: £100

IF ISA Fees: No specific IFISA fees, including for ISA Transfers In or Out

Is it a ‘Flexible’ ISA? Yes, our property-backed IFISA is flexible

Do you allow transfers in from existing ISAs?: Yes

Types of Investments: Loans secured by residential or commercial mortgages (buy-to-let and bridging loans).

A Background to LandlordInvest

How did it all begin: what is the background to the platform?

The company was founded by financial services and IT professionals. Two of the co-founders, Filip and Nik, met whilst working for a UHNW family with significant global real estate assets. Whilst working togehther, they spent months discussing various business ideas and decided that they wanted pursue a entrepreneurial path by founding a secured P2P lending platform, as they spotted an opportunity in the market given banks reluctance to lend. They were later joined by the third co-founder, Joe Vallender, LandlordInvest’s CTO.

What makes you different from the other options for P2P Investor’s money?

Fully FCA authorised
All loans are secured by property
Flexible IFISA
No pre-funding

Is there any sort of Provision Fund/ Insurance against bad debt?

We do not operate a provision fund or have any insurance against bad debt. All loans are secured by property.

Is there an Early Sell out option or Secondary Market?

We do not operate a dedicated secondary market. It is scheduled to become available end of April/beginning of May this year. We currently charge an administration fee corresponding to 0.5% of the total outstanding principal value, provided that we are able to find a buyer for that loan or loan part.

Automated Investment: How easy is it for Investors to maintain their Investment?

Investors have to choose themselves which loan(s) they want to invest in. We do not make any recommendations or offer any tools for automatic allocation.

What plans have you for the future?

Our plan it is to continue to build an investor base, and establish our own niche in an industry that is becoming quite saturated. Our aim is to offer the best risk adjusted returns in the industry.