Secret Investor: RateSetter cease unsecured business lending and rates at Zopa and Lending Works rise slightly

Totals lent to date (24th January 2018)

*All data correct at the time this blog was compiled.

LOANS TO BUSINESSES

Assetz Capital - £414,700,000

Crowd2Fund - £4,000,000
Funding Circle - £3,100,000,000
FundingKnight - £31,485,000
FundingSecure - £213,095,809
Money & Co - £6 million approx
Rebuildingsociety - £12,100,000
ThinCats - £271,782,000
Invest and Fund - £3 million plus
LendingCrowd - £24,888,216
ArchOver - £60,229,000

PERSONAL P2P LENDING

Zopa - £2,930,000,000
RateSetter - £2,294,970,066

Lending Works – Over £70 million

…………..

LOANS TO BUSINESS

Assetz Capital

Lent to Date: £414,700,000

When this blog was compiled there were 68 loans in the pipeline and 1 was imminently due to be drawndown.

Highlighted Loan: Property Developer returned to platform to raise the initial £480k of a total £4.6 million facility required to construct a 53 bed nursing home in the North West. The initial LTV is 60% but this will rise to 70% when the entire facility has been provided and building work is completed. The borrower has recently completed other nursing homes and lending will not commence until income from these covers the monthly payments. It would appear that investors will be at risk if anything caused income from the other homes to fall during the course of the development project. I therefore felt the return of 7% pa was too low – in fact I would probably avoid this whatever the interest rate.

Managed Accounts: The following accounts automatically distribute funds on behalf of investors across different sections of the platform's portfolio and are covered by a discretionary Provision Fund (the target rates of return are in brackets):

Quick Access Account (3.75% pa)

30 Day Access Account (4.25% pa)

Property Secured Investment Account (5.5% pa)

Great British Business Account version 2 (6.25% pa)

Green Energy Income Account (7% pa) – New capital coming into this account have been paused due to the lack of available loans meeting the investment criteria.

Crowd2Fund

Lent to Date: £4 million – latest figure available.

Over the past 2 weeks things have been quite quiet on this platform with just a single new auction appearing.

Highlighted Loan: Care consultants, who offer advice to those setting up nursing homes, were looking to raise £90k to continue the expansion of their business. Their financials were from 2016 and none of the numerous questions posed by investors had been answered including one about why they had returned to the site just 3 months after requesting £76k with a near enough identical proposal. Those brave enough to plunge into the unknown were offered a return of 10.5% pa.

Funding Circle

Lent to Date: £3,100,000,000

Funding Circle are unique amongst the major P2P platforms that lend to SMEs in not allowing investors to choose who they lend to. Instead two options are offered which distribute funds across differing risk profiles of loans within their portfolio. These are options are projected to return 4.8% pa and 7.2% pa.

Defaulted Loans Update: Despite significant reducing my holdings, the defaults keep on coming. A loan to a demolition business went bad last week. There had been notice of a large CCJ against the business in October and they have now been declared insolvent. Only 6 repayments had been made therefore £34 of the £40 I lent is still outstanding.

FundingKnight

Lent to Date: £31,485,000 – no change.

There were 0 auctions ongoing when this blog was compiled – only 1 loan has appeared on this site in 2017. The platform is planning a relaunch in 2018.

FundingSecure

Lent to Date: £213,095,809 at the end of December. Figure updated monthly.

Today 1 auction was launched on the site.

Highlighted Loan: Property Developer looked to raise £188.5k yesterday with security provided by an office building that has full planning permission to be demolished and replaced by a 3-storey residential block. This was the first tranche of a facility totalling almost £1.3 million and will, at this early stage, just be used to clear existing debt. Further tranches will be released when evidence of progress is provided but the LTV will never exceed 70%. A Personal Guarantee is provided in addition to the charge on the site. The usual return of 13% pa was offered but I was wary of getting involved at such an early stage in the project.

Defaults: No assets have been redeemed in the past fortnight, but a couple of properties have moved closer to being sold.

Money & Co

Lent to Date: £6 million approx. (latest available figure)

When this blog was compiled there was 1 auction taking place.

Highlighted Loan: The purchasers of a financial services company returned to the site for their 9th tranche of funding - £50k was required. Investors were offered an 8% pa return. These capital injections were requested at regular intervals over the past year however the financial information has not been updated in that time and still represents percentages rather than absolute numbers.

rebuildingsociety

Lent to Date: £12,100,000 – fortnightly increase of £100,000 (0.83%).

There were 2 auctions taking place when this blog was compiled.

Highlighted Loan: Providers of launderettes in student flats returned to reBuildingSociety to renew their previous borrowing to enable them to expand further. As payments are made online, the washing machines themselves are cashless reducing labour costs. This seems like an excellent business model and it was no surprise to see the loan fully funded for an average return over 19% pa.

ThinCats

Lent to Date: £271,782,000 – no change.

There were 2 auctions taking place when this blog was compiled.

Highlighted Loan: Property Developers returned to ThinCats for a second loan to continue the development of a Victorian property in the North of England into 7 flats and a cottage. The total amount lent came to £495k which gave a rather high current LTV of 76% although the GDV ratio is forecasted to be 37%. Those who wanted to gamble on a successful conclusion to the renovations were offered a return of 11% pa.

Invest & Fund

Lent to Date: Over £3 million

There was 1 active auction taking place when this blog was compiled.

Highlighted Loan: Another Property Developer requested the second >£60k tranche of their £575k facility to convert a former brewery into an apartment block. This was the fourth loan of this nature the borrower had taken out with I&F, two of which had been repaid already. With a projected GDV below 60%, investors were offered a return of 9% pa.

Platform News: Invest & Fund have a couple of enhancements planned for the coming months. They are going to allow their investors more time to undertake due diligence by sending out the email notifications of auctions 24 hours before they are scheduled to go live. Secondly, they are developing an auto-bid product to encourage more passive investors.

LendingCrowd

Lent to Date: £24,888,216 – fortnightly increase of £540,300 – 2.22% growth.

There were 3 auctions taking place when this blog was compiled.

Highlighted Loan: Commercial tree fellers were looking to raise >£82k to purchase equipment. The most recent accounts contained pre-tax profits that were nearly enough to cover the 5 year loan but Net Assets were negligible. I felt this was a marginal loan so invested a small amount for a return over 13% pa.

ArchOver

Lent to Date: £60,229,000 – fortnightly increase of £1,810,000 – 3.1% growth.

There was 1 auction taking place when this blog was compiled.

Highlighted Loan: Accountants serving SMEs returned to ArchOver to refinance £60k of borrowing and increase it by £40k to provide additional working capital while waiting for aged receivables to be paid. No indication of the vintage of these invoices was provided but at least the loan was insured by Coface. Investors were offered a return of 7% pa and the loan was fully funded on the day that the notification email was sent out.

PERSONAL P2P LENDING

Zopa

Lent to Date:  £2.98 billion – an increase of £50 million over the past 2 weeks – 1.71% growth.

Returns: Zopa's 2 accounts offer returns of 4.0% and 4.6% pa with the latter allocating some funds to riskier loans that offer higher returns. Having reduced during 2017, these have recently increased by 0.3% and 0.1% respectively.

Zopa distribute investor's money mostly to unsecured consumer loans.

Platform News: Zopa now have enough borrowers to open up their IFISA to new customers.

Ratesetter

Lent to Date: £2,294,970,066 – an increase of £23,993,772 over the past 2 weeks – 1.06% growth.

Returns: Interest rates are set according to supply and demand. They currently range from 3.4% pa to 5.6% pa depending on the length of the investment. Over the past 2 weeks these figures have increased by 0.6% and 0.3% respectively.

Capital is covered by a Provision Fund. Ratesetter proudly boast that no investor has lost a penny since they launched in 2010.

Platform News: Ratesetter which has a diversified range of borrowers across consumer, business and motor finance markets but hey will no longer make unsecured loans to SMEs. In future, companies will have to offer property or other assets as securities.

Lending Works

Lent to Date: Over £70 million.

Lending Works are another platform who have decided to only quote an approximate value for their totals lent.

Returns: 4.5% pa and 6.0% pa via an IFISA or standard account for 3 and 5 year investments respectively. These have both increased by 0.5% over the past couple of weeks.

As well as a Provision Fund to cover investor's risks, this site also insures borrowers against redundancy, fraud, illness and accidents making this a very fair site for all concerned.

****Disclaimer: This blog contains the views of the Secret Investor. Your capital is at risk when lending via all P2P Platforms. You're recommended to speak to a qualified Independent Financial Advisor.