I am new to P2P lending and have recently opened an account with Ratesetter with the intention of investing in the rolling market.

I'm surprised at how low the rates are....over the last week, they have fluctuated between 2% and 3.5%. Is that the current average as I can't find any historical data? Just looking to hear from more experienced investors at what kind of rate you have been able to obtain?
The 1 year fixed is 4% so am wondering whether to go for that instead.
Any views gratefully received.

You can get 5.9% on Ratesetter 5 year. If you want short term then you are better off with Assetz Capital 4.1% instant access or 5.1% 30 day access. Usual warnings apply.

Historical rates can be viewed here https://invest.ratesetter.com/aboutus/statistics

Totally agree with MoneyGeoff re Assetz. I started with Ratesetter first - when the rates were more like 5%+ on the 1 year (most of my 1 year money was around 6%). However rates dropped earlier this year, I think through a combination of money inflow, Ratesetter manipulating rates by making default money automatically going in at current rates and so on.


Assetz is my preferred platform of all of them - personally I would steer clear of the GBBA though.

Thank you for the advice. I signed up via the £100 bonus so the first year return isn't bad if you take that into account. I think I will go for the 1 year fixed at 4% and then start to look at some of the other platforms for depositing higher amounts.
Can I ask why you like Assetz, apart form the better rates?

Yes, the £100 bonus does make it better, £1000 investment at 3% with a £100 bonus, technically a 13% return.


Reasons i like assetz:-


Platform is straightforward to use.
Choice of accounts - 1 month notice account giving 5.1%
easy access account giving 4.1%
MLA (manual lending account) select your loans to invest in


i have money sat in the notice account with the view that 5.1% is better than any cash bank account my a long long way.


The MLA I enjoy the process of assessing the credit reports - selecting the individual loans and so on.


With Assetz it does feel a lot more interactive and I guess that is part of being an active investor rather than the more passive approach of ratesetter where you set your %'s and let it get on with it.

Assetz Capital has a 0.5% bonus on new lent funds until end of August, earning bonus rate until 4th Jan 2019.


I use Assetz capital as a holding account, getting up to 18% on other P2P platforms.

And there's me chuffed with a return of 7%+ overall on Assetz.


18% is a different territory altogether.

I have a lot to learn!! How can you get 18% return?
On Ratesetter, I can't see how you would get a borrower to offer you a higher rate than the market average at any given time. From what you have all said though, there are more pick and mix borrowers to choose from on other platforms where you can take a higher risk and thus offer a higher rate?

18% return i suspect comes with a higher level of risk.


Every platform does things differently.


Ratesetter as I previously said is a bit passive in that you dont "choose" who you lend money to, the only thing you can do is manually set the rate you want to lend out at and even that has been described as awkward to setup by many. Primarily because its in ratesetters interest for you to lend at their definition of market rate.


Assetz you can fire and forget in a similar way with the instant and 30 day accounts, stick £500 into the 30 day and odds are you would get 1/12th of 5.1% next month in interest.


But they also have the MLA (Manual lending account), where you decide if you are going to lend £100 to someone who wants to buy a chip shop in Nottingham or £200 to someone who wants to renovate an inherited property to sell on or £300 to someone who wants to buy their business premises. This is fun and I like it. Its also nice because if you invest in a number of these the repayments are all throughout the month so almost every day I log in and see interest being added.


Another platform like Kuflink is all property and again you can invest £100 for someone to develop some flats or they also have an "autoinvest" option where you throw £200 in and it splits that across 5-10 different loans.


Kuflink does some good referral bonuses as well, think its £100 for referrer and £100 for referre and last time i looked it was for a £500 investment (@bxboards on this forum is a good sharer of bonuses for kuflink)


I suspect the 18% is higher risk platforms, ultimately it is all a gamble though and the adage goes dont gamble what you cant afford to lose.

Thanks Snow Dog, that's really helpful.

I've dipped my toe in the water with Kuflink and find the property options easier to evaluate. But Assetz 30 day account sounds like it could be for me also before moving on to the MLA.

Hi all,
Just a couple quick questions, hopefully someone can help. I have looked through some of the posts but there are 94 pages to go through and some of them are very old so some of the p2p websites have probably changed. Anyway the 2 questions are below.

1. I know this should probably be directed at funding circle, however when I look at my summary page; "all time earnings" shows -£0.14 under interest, surely the interest is positive not negative. If it was negative it should appear in the "losses" as bad debt etc? I can only assume the interest hasn't been paid yet and is showing as negative until it is paid? It has been like that for 48hrs now.

2. Has anyone heard of and used Choice by Octopus investments? Any good or bad experiences with them?

Thanks again. Apologies if there are loads of posts about these questions already.

I suggest you look at a more specialist forum dedicated to P2P such as p2pindependentforum.com. You'll find the folks on there just as helpful, ready to offer an opinion and blinkered as here!

I also suggest that you'll be able to make better use of this forum if you build-up your skills with the Advanced Search facility - it can be far quicker to get results (immediate) rather than waiting for someone to reply.

Hello all,


Would anyone know why the p2pindependent forum wouldn't grant me 'membership'. I applied to join over a week ago now, and still I can only visit as a guest without any possibility to become an active member. I've looked around for a 'Contact Us' or similar, but am unable to locate the same...


I look forward to any insight you might share with me please,
With Kind Regards

I suspect it's as simple as the admins haven't OKd your account yet - basic anti-spam measures. If nothing happens today, PM me, and I'll nudge 'em.

I invested with Octopus Choice for some time but pulled out in favour of Kuflink. OC offer 5% skin in the game and around 4%. Kuflink offered 6-7% with 20% skin. Kuflink have since changed their model to 5% skin and (I think) 15% provision fund.

What is meant or understood by 'Skin' please?

They have "skin in the game" means they have their own money in the investments.

So "5% skin" means that 5% of the money lent is their own. Ideally, that money will rank after other investors when it comes to repayment, so if there's a 5% shortfall on repayment, the investors get repaid everything, while the platform lose all their own money.

It means that some platforms invest their own money into loans. Octopus Choice and Kuflink both do it on a 'first loss' basis which should lessen the chances of investors losing money. I like the model because they are putting their money where their mouth is, which means hopefully they are putting up better quality loans than some other platforms (But of course this is not guaranteed)

They added me on the 25th - Thanks