Peer-to-peer lending and saving: Making everyone happy

amcluesent

I'm assuming that the tax treatment of written-off debt is similalarly unfavourrable with both Funding Circle and Zopa?

FC could start doing their own 'dragons den' style web-casts with business start-ups pitching for funding and we can click an 'in' button and the £ value.

edinburgher

I'm assuming that the tax treatment of written-off debt is similalarly unfavourrable with both Funding Circle and Zopa?

No doubt, but you'd need to check to make sure. Are you registering? Im planning on starting a regular £250/mth payment into p2p lending, would be nice to diversify outside of Zopa.

FC could start doing their own 'dragons den' style web-casts with business start-ups pitching for funding and we can click an 'in' button and the £ value.

Now *that* would be interesting - a p2p site that allowed you to purchase an equity stake, as opposed to making a loan. Imagine that the secondary market might get quite complicated tho.

xrjtg

The cashback is quite simple, and set out clearly in their Terms and Conditions. Why they direct you to it through the private members' area from the homepage I have no idea.

Terms and conditions of cashback promotion

a) For a limited time only lenders that complete the registration process to create Funding Circle lender accounts before and on Thursday 12th August are entitled to 3% cashback on any lending they carry out at Funding Circle (“Founder Lenders”)
b) For a limited time only lenders that complete the registration process to create Funding Circle lender accounts after Thursday 12th August are entitled to 2% cashback on any lending they carry out at Funding Circle
c) If a loan request is fully funded by bids from you and other lenders and the borrower accepts the aggregated loan request offer, your money is then transferred from your Funding Circle lender account to the Funding Circle account of the borrower. Immediately following this cashback will be paid into your Funding Circle lender account.
d) The cashback paid to you will be equal to the cashback percentage you are entitled to, depending on your registration date, multiplied by the amount you have lent to the borrower.
e) The cashback offer does not apply to loan parts purchased from other lenders.
f) Funding Circle reserves the right to withdraw the cashback offer at any time, but not before at least 20 companies have accepted loans at https://www.fundingcircle.com.

edinburgher

Funding Circle reserves the right to withdraw the cashback offer at any time, but not before at least 20 companies have accepted loans at https://www.fundingcircle.com.

So it's just a 'teaser' offer?

Tara5536

I have come on to this site to see if I can find an answer to a problem that I really dont want to get complicated, but I understand must be legal.
Is there an answer to peer to peer lending at a community level?

I am a parent of a person with a learning disability who bought a computer for my son and he paid it off (no interest) weekly over a year.
He has a network of friends who cant afford a new computer so I am prepared to buy reconditioned ones and allow his friends to pay me back weekly as did my son.
Firstly is this legal?
Can I ask them to set up a s/o to an account I could set up?
Do I need anything in writing (would it have any clout if required)
Thanks

edinburgher

Is there an answer to peer to peer lending at a community level?

From memory, some banks allow investment in funds/bonds that invest at a local/community level, but I don't think you can direct where they spend the monies. It's also quite common for p2p lending to exist at a community level within certain ethnic/demographic groups (for example, migrant communities who help each other out).

Are you planning on charging them interest? If not, I don't see why it should be an issue legally. Not sure about contracts/agreements etc. - wait for a legal eagle to come along.

Have you explored whether there's any existing grants/charitable funding for computer users with learning disabilities?

*Edit: You'll get far more answers if you start your own thread!

xrjtg

edinburgher wrote: »

So it's just a 'teaser' offer?

They may just be covering themselves in case it really takes off and they don't need to offer the incentive any more.

What might actually be more significant, and I didn't post above, is that further down in the Terms and Conditions they say that they will never charge any management fees (usually 1% annually, calculated monthly) on any loan contracts entered into before the end of 2010.

Gorgeous_George

Tara5536 wrote: »

I have come on to this site to see if I can find an answer to a problem that I really dont want to get complicated, but I understand must be legal.
Is there an answer to peer to peer lending at a community level?

Credit Unions would be one option. Another might be Yes-secure but I don't like YS as much as FC or Zopa.

GG