Zopa stats

GavB79

Ok my first deposit into Zopa is now 70% lent (£700). Looking at all the different options is a bit overwhelming: % of loan, repayment date, pending state etc etc.

What are the stats I should be looking at to keep track of things simplistically?

I am thinking of putting in £100 each month for three years, then I should have more out than in each month. Is this wise?

Sceptic001

The best place to ask this question would be on the Zopa lenders' forum
http://talk.zopa.com//index.php?showforum=2

jamesd

GavB79, what I usually look at most for My Loan Book is the group by borrowing state choice. That gives a decent summary of the various states, from paid off through current or defaulted, with the amounts of money for each.

To help adjust rates you might find the Zopa MI page of interest. I like to use the seven day demand vs supply graphs to see how the balance between supply and demand is doing and whether market conditions are likely to be good or bad for lenders. The higher the blue line is, the better conditions are for lenders.

Whether it's wise depends on your objectives and how much you have in other investments. As an unregulated investment, having more than about 5% of your total investments in it is unwise. That's true for any unregulated investment, since they all lack the extra consumer protection that comes from having a regulator and the protection of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Before Zopa in the list of things to do come:

1. Emergency fund in savings accounts that you can get rapid access to. Anything from three months to a year or more's worth of bills worth depending on how cautious you want to be. Cash ISAs can be used for some of this.
2. Paying off debts, except mortgage and student loan.
3. Pension contributions if your employer will match your contributions, since that matching gives you an immediate large gain. Maybe additional pension contributions as well.
4. Insurance. Perhaps life assurance if you have a family. Maybe personal health insurance (PHI) that will pay out a portion of your salary for life if you become unable to work - beats living on incapacity benefit for a long time!
5. Possibly overpaying on a mortgage, depends on the mortgage rate and whether you just want this debt gone or not.

Once you've taken care of any of those that seem appropriate to you then you could consider investments like Zopa that put your capital at risk.

The first stop here is the S&S ISA, up to the annual limit left over after any cash ISA money you use. The investments available here can be anything from ultra-safe (UK government bonds) through mainstream corporate bond funds and on to share funds or very speculative individual shares like individual oil exploration companies. Just pick whatever mixture suits the level of risk you're willing to take.

Once you've fully used the ISA allowance then it's worth taking a look at funds held outside a tax wrapper, venture capital trusts, possibly BTL, Zopa and such. Lots of options.