IFISA and P2P lending

the_learner

Hi, anyone using this year's ISA allowance to invest in P2P lending?
Any suggestions regarding the best deal around? I would prefer short term loans (max 1y) with decent return and offered by a firm with good reputation, as I guess most of you want.

fun4everyone

Have a look at Funding Secure. They have the authorisation now to offer an ISA although I don't think its actually launched yet.

masonic

None of the significant P2P platforms have the necessary permission from HMRC yet. FundingSecure is pursuing this more aggressively than the others with FCA authorisation and is expected to be first, but it could be a couple of months from now.

the_learner

Thank you guys. I was under the impression that this was available already. At this point do you know if I can:

- move 16k now to a Stock and Share ISA (I need to keep 4k for my Lifetime ISA)
- transfer this amount (or part of it) to IFISA as soon as one becomes available

bowlhead99

You can transfer between any of the 4 main types of ISA (Cash, S&S, IF, LISA).

So yes you can move S&S ISA or Cash ISA into an IF ISA later without it eating any more of your precious £20k allowance.

For that matter, you could do £20k to S&S ISA now instead of leaving £4k in your bank, and then open the LISA by transfer in of £4k cash or investments from the S&S ISA (assuming the S&S provider is willing to do partial transfers out - a few might only want to move the full account and close it).

fun4everyone

masonic wrote: »

None of the significant P2P platforms have the necessary permission from HMRC yet. FundingSecure is pursuing this more aggressively than the others with FCA authorisation and is expected to be first, but it could be a couple of months from now.

Yeah that is correct. Have an email from them here (from March) stating they now have full FCA authorisation but the application to be an ISA manager is still pending. They suggested 2 months as the timeframe.

the_learner

Thanks a lot. Sorry for the slightly unrelated question. Even if we are all waiting to hold P2P in a ISA, is it worth considering investing the minimum amount to get the welcome bonus from some of these platforms? I can see that there are few offers around like:

- £100 from RateSetter if you lend £1,000
- £100 from Growth Stree if you lend £2,000
- £250 from Bridgecrowd if you lend £5,000

Do you thing that opening more P2P investments with the minimum amount to get the bonus is going to affect credit score and is in general a good opportunity to take?
I have £10,000 to invest and that I can lock for 1y or so.

eskbanker

Personally I'd be surprised if you could move existing P2P investments directly into an ISA once available, based on the need for the Bed & ISA process for shares, i.e. it's only cash that can be taken under the ISA umbrella in any of the existing variants.

fun4everyone

the_learner wrote: »

- £100 from RateSetter if you lend £1,000
- £100 from Growth Street if you lend £2,000

I think the two quoted are very good uses of £1000 for a year. Well £2000 in growth streets case now? It was £1000 when I started it off a few weeks ago.

In short

Do you thing that opening more P2P investments with the minimum amount to get the bonus is going to affect credit score

No

and is in general a good opportunity to take?

Depends on the site but I would agree a good opportunity for quite a few of them.

There are others that are quite good as well imo. I don't want to spam but have a search. I did not like the look of bridge crowd when I investigated them personally, so I left them alone - but others may differ.

To go back to ISA question - there are SOME p2p sites who are actually offering an IFISA right now, such as Landbay. Landbay are trustworthy in my opinion the problem is the rates are crap there (3.75% or something). You are better off waiting for FS or others.

the_learner

eskbanker wrote: »

Personally I'd be surprised if you could move existing P2P investments directly into an ISA once available, based on the need for the Bed & ISA process for shares, i.e. it's only cash that can be taken under the ISA umbrella in any of the existing variants.

My intention is not to move these P2P investments to an ISA once it becomes available. I am just wondering if opening small accounts to get the bonus might be a reasonable choice.
I know it is not really in the case of bank account sincd they do credit checks and switching often just to get the bonus is not a good practice.

the_learner

fun4everyone wrote: »

I think the two quoted are very good uses of £1000 for a year. Well £2000 in growth streets case now? It was £1000 when I started it off a few weeks ago.

In short



No



Depends on the site but I would agree a good opportunity for quite a few of them.

There are others that are quite good as well imo. I don't want to spam but have a search. I did not like the look of bridge crowd when I investigated them personally, so I left them alone - but others may differ.

To go back to ISA question - there are SOME p2p sites who are actually offering an IFISA right now, such as Landbay. Landbay are trustworthy in my opinion the problem is the rates are crap there (3.75% or something). You are better off waiting for FS or others.

I took that info from a website that compares P2P cashback offers.
So far I only opened one account. It was Wellesley 19 months ago. They offered an iPad2 on top of 4.1% on £3,000 lent for 18 months.
Now these offer look even better since it is cash (hopefully tax free).