Peer-to-peer lending sites: MSE guide discussion

olliebean

adindas wrote: »

Hi olliebean
I have seen form your signature you earned from survey the amount of £427.30. Would you please explain how did you do that ?
Which survey website have you done the survey.

Not really on topic here but about 2/3 of it came from Populus Live, the rest from New Vista and YouGov. The Amazon vouchers are mostly from Shop and Scan, which I think is invite only, with the rest from Ipsos.

bigadaj

fun4everyone wrote: »

The benefits of selling/buying on the Funding Secure SM are nice. The problem I have with calculating when to buy is that its not just the tax liability you are taking on, you are taking on the full default risk as well. How to fit this into my calculations I am not 100% on although clearly you need a bit more on top.

Surely you can't avoid taking on the full default risk, it's the nature of the game

Tax liability is an issue and does vary across platforms dependent on how they operate their secondary markets.

masonic

fun4everyone wrote: »

The benefits of selling/buying on the Funding Secure SM are nice. The problem I have with calculating when to buy is that its not just the tax liability you are taking on, you are taking on the full default risk as well. How to fit this into my calculations I am not 100% on although clearly you need a bit more on top.

The way to avoid taking on the full default risk is to sell it to someone else before the end of the term (which in practice means at least 1 month before term). This is also the way to reduce the tax liability.

I don't often buy on the secondary market at FS, but when I do it is loans that have only been active for up to a couple of weeks and that are available for no more than a minimal premium (for loans I have missed when they originally went live).

I regularly sell on the secondary market, although I really don't understand why people buy loans from me with just a couple of months to go at very small discounts.

Fellwalker

Froggitt wrote: »

However, either the Zopa or RS annual "interest" statement I am sure included the bonus in that taxable amount....cant remember which one.

Zopa shows "Bonus: Tell a friend" as being taxable and it includes the figure within the sum "Gross earnings to declare to HMRC"

Fellwalker

I have 4 different figures, EACH OF WHICH IS DIFFERENT:-

• total from all downloaded statements
• Total currently invested
• Zopa total (1st April 2017)
• Outstanding per my_all_time_loan_book_03042017
  (no entries since end March)

Has anyone been able to reconcile their account, or is it designed to be obtuse?

Additionally, I've combined all of my downloaded statements into one, and added up the interest plus safeguard interest, and it disagrees with the figure Zopa gave me to include on my tax return. OK, it is only by 42 pence, so it does not actually affect my report to HMRC, but this is actual finance we are talking about, not some "it'll be good enough" forecast.

Tolqua

I'm about to invest PSA in a Lending Works ISA for myself and my wife, but I'm a bit concerned because of a couple of small irregularities I've experienced with Lending Works:

1. After registering with them inputting my address details manually rather than selecting from the list, my address details aren't showing when I log on and look in My Details (same for my wife's). I contacted them, but rather than sort out the problem or escalate it to get it solved, they simply confirmed that the details were correct and said not to worry about it.

2. After applying for the ISA I got a message displayed saying that not all details could be verified and that they'd be in touch. No confirmation and no email acknowledgement, so a week later (today) I called them to see what was going on and, again, they confirmed that everything was fine - the ISAs were open and ready to use and they don't normally send out any acknowledgement email. When I explained about the verification message they did admit that I should have been contacted, but didn't seem overly concerned.

Now this all seems just a little irregular for any organisation, let alone one that's being entrusted with my savings. Am I right to be concerned about this? Maybe they're completely kosher and just a bit flaky with their customer service, but I'd appreciate comments from anyone who's found them to be fine over time or maybe had a similar experience to mine.

Tolqua.

TheShape

I have an IFISA with Lending Works. I've only been using the platform for a couple of months so no long term experience.

A lot of the p2p platforms are evolving rapidly and system updates often cause strange website behaviour.

I've felt comfortable enough to make a small investment (1.5k) before end of tax year. I'm using a number of other p2p platforms, hence the relatively small investment.

george4064

Rates at Ratesetter have dropped a lot recently, best rate on rolling market is 2.2%....

takesyourchances

george4064 wrote: »

Rates at Ratesetter have dropped a lot recently, best rate on rolling market is 2.2%....

With Ratesetter I have been using the 5 year, mostly getting rates at higher than 5% or wait until the rate raises to 5.% or higher, just topped up a little this evening at 5.2%.

masonic

Frightening. I sold out of my 5 year contracts paying 6.5% because I felt that rate was too low.