Kuflink IFISA - anyone doing it? Some doubts / clarity needed

pp556677

I want to diversify and looking at kuflink

They obviously have a very compelling article but don't seem to explain the details of the compounding / rolling interest when subbing to their deals
 www.kuflink.com/blog/if-isa-beginners-guide-to-earning-1m-interest-tax-free

So my question is:
- If I put X amount every year in a 5 year plan, and do so for 25 years, is all the money being reinvested in each new 5 year plan (either manually or automatically)? 
- Will I then be able to cash out on year 30, when the last 5 year plan finishes?

pp556677

Also, what everyone experience with real interest paid out?

grumiofoundation

We signed up for Kuflink with smaller amount to take advantage of cashback offer (although we were happy with investment overall, cashback icing on the cake!) and to 'test' platform.

We didn't use IFISA as (at the time not sure if this is still the case) this meant you had to invest in a spread of loans and we preferred to pick the loans ourselves.

In total invested in 4 loans (couple of hundred pounds each). Interest paid to account not compounded. 

2 paid back on time (pre-covid).
2 haven't paid back yet (not hugely surprising really ), properties haven't been sold and end date keeps getting extended. Still being paid interest though so not really worried.

Alexland

Our experience of each investing £1k via Kuflink Autoinvest IFISAs for 1 year was that they paid the advertised rate but that's not to say that they will be able to continue to deliver the 7% annual return used in their example and of course the whole operation could go belly up tomorrow and leave you nursing up to 100% loss. I decided it was worth the risk for the signup bonuses at the time but not worth the ongoing risk to our capital. Over the 30 years in their example there is a good chance their business model could fail and even if it was successful the spending power of £1m would be a lot less due to inflation which they don't mention.

Shedman

Not sure how this stance sits with your other thread about NS&I and not being bothered about interest rates on £85k+...seems a bit odd to me to be unconcerned about interest rates on £85k+ but then looking at highly risky P2P for a few extra %?.  But each to their own as you said there..

I was with Kuflink along with a number of other P2Ps to the tune of about £30k total and feel lucky enough to manage to get out unscathed (bar £500 in a suspended Assetz capital loan which has this week just been repaid) just days before they all started to impose delays on payouts and changing other terms and adding additional fees etc due the COVID downturn.  I personally wouldn't be looking to re-enter P2P until the direction of the economy, particularly housing, was more certain. 

 With Kuflink it was generally OK but even in pre COVID times loans kept getting extended and repayments delayed and over which you had no control.  Now I guess if you're going for one of their black box 3 or 5 year options that wouldn't  be such an issue , but I would agree with Alex that a 30 year horizon with them would be optimistic...in fact being tied in for 5 years would be a concern.  They didn't seem to have a strong pipeline of new loans available when I looked a couple of weeks ago when I was doing some checking on dormant accounts.

Aceace

pp556677 said:

I want to diversify and looking at kuflink

They obviously have a very compelling article but don't seem to explain the details of the compounding / rolling interest when subbing to their deals
 www.kuflink.com/blog/if-isa-beginners-guide-to-earning-1m-interest-tax-free

So my question is:
- If I put X amount every year in a 5 year plan, and do so for 25 years, is all the money being reinvested in each new 5 year plan (either manually or automatically)? 
- Will I then be able to cash out on year 30, when the last 5 year plan finishes?

I've been investing with Kuflink for a couple of years now. They are a decent platform with a very good record to date, including their ability to recover capital and interest from defaulted loans. I don't have any concerns over risk of their platform failing. The LTVs are low enough to cope with a fairly large property crash, but this is where I see the main risk. If property prices were to fall by more than 40% from when the valuations took place then you are likely to start to see some capital losses. I think an investment decision is really down to how likely you think this is. Personally, I'm ok with this risk for the reward being offered. 
I have a low 5 figure investment with them, mostly spread over 30ish manually selected loans, with one small investment in their 5 year autoinvest to get a feel for how it worked. I much prefer the manually selected loans for a couple of reasons: 1) I have much better access to my cash as there is a regular supply of maturing loans, and I could attempt to sell on the secondary market if needed.  2) the auto accounts invest in higher tier loans, which I feel are particularly poorly priced on the kuflink platform (I won't invest in these in my manually selected loans).

I totally agree that the methods of paying interest are very poorly explained (and in some cases not explained at all) on their platform. From speaking to them directly  I have discovered that interest in their multi-year accounts is compounded by default, but you can select to have the interest paid annually if you wish. Again, I can't find this explanation anywhere on their website. You would need to contact their customer support to arrange for interest to be paid annually. 
I gather from speaking to other investors that they will contact you near the end of your term to ask if you want to roll your investment into a new plan. By default the funds would be returned to your holding account. 
Yes, you would be able to cash out when your last plan finishes, subject to any defaults that need to be resolved. 

pp556677 said:

Also, what everyone experience with real interest paid out?

I've been paid the advertised rate of interest on all of my completed loans. 

bryant21

I have had an IFISA with Kuflink for some time and everything seemed fine - at first!
But now nobody answers my questions and if I send emails there's no response except to say that they are very busy at the moment - because of covid (of course)!
Does anyone know what's happening - are they going bust? Is that why they do not answer me?

maxsteam

I know from experience that there is a huge temptation at a small company if no one is looking over your shoulder not to pass on everything that should be passed on to investors. I've no experience of using Kuflink and it's not something that I would consider. There are too many things that could go wrong.

GJM55

Anyone know why their auditors have resigned? I can't view this document on Companies House website.

grumiofoundation

maxsteam said:

I know from experience that there is a huge temptation at a small company if no one is looking over your shoulder not to pass on everything that should be passed on to investors. I've no experience of using Kuflink and it's not something that I would consider. There are too many things that could go wrong.

As in commit fraud/steal?

underground99

GJM55 said:

Anyone know why their auditors have resigned? I can't view this document on Companies House website.

Last year's audit for the p2p company and the parent plc wasn't a clean opinion but had a qualification, and there was also an emphasis of matter in the parent accounts. And the accounts were quite late in being filed (June 2019 accounts only signed in Feb 2021). Perhaps EY saw them as a headache rather than a profitable engagement.