Hello and welcome to the late-starting working week. Today, we’re sharing an opinion piece in FT Adviser. It’s replete with wisdom and common sense about the much misunderstood peer-to-peer (P2P) sector. Imagine an asset class where investor returns have been overwhelmingly positive every year since its inception and incredibly stable, hovering around the mid-single digits, […]
The signals on funding for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are mixed. Every few weeks research is released that purports to show SMEs are waking up to the funding available outside the traditional banking mainstream. Then along comes data that seems to demonstrate the opposite. Below is an upbeat report published here just over a […]
Peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders have done well. With an annual default rate of less than 0.3 per cent over more than £15 million facilitated, Money&Co. lenders have achieved returns of more than 8 per cent gross. But P2P loans are riskier investments than cash deposits as an asset class – and ease of access. We’ve attached […]
Cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin to the fore, had a very good four weeks to the middle of May, with Bitcoin, the bellwether of cryptos, gaining in value by around 20 per cent. There’s been a retrenchment since then, but general interest in cryptos has been piqued once more. So the following warning from the Financial Conduct […]
Death and taxes may be the only certainties in life, but they offer another immutable truth: they always come at an inconvenient time. So, it’s pleasing and mildly surprising to discover that some of you are addressing both death and taxes at the same time. Our Inheritance Tax service is proving popular, with several enquiries […]
As we’ve said before, times are tough for income-hungry investors. Interest rates remain low, and traditional savings products mostly lag inflation. So the hunt for income is always on, as noted by our friends at P2P Finance News. ISA SEASON may be a distant memory but there are still tax-wrapper product launches to look forward […]
Loans from property-backed Seascape (currently we are offering number 22 in the series) continue to prove popular. The latest A-rated tranche yields 8 per cent gross, at a fixed rate for five years. After less than a day, the issue is 36 per cent subscribed. Bear in mind that while there is no profit without […]
Our determination to keep the crowd – individual investors – in crowdfunding is on the record. That does not preclude forming partnerships with bigger commercial lenders, but the individual will always have a place in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. Our friends at P2P Finance News quote Orca Money’s Iain Niblock’s thoughts on the debate: While much […]
The alternative finance sector is growing fast. This is especially true of the financial technology (FinTech) sub-sector. With rapid growth comes rapid change – so much so that the language we use to describe our industry often struggles to keep up. We’ve often reported here on the need for an established taxonomy for alternative finance. […]
Recently, HM Treasury, the Department for International Trade, and Innovate Finance, joined together in publishing a report entitled “UK Fintech State of the Nation.” The report provides a snapshot perspective as to progress in the UK regarding FinTech, as well as providing a roster of ongoing programs created to ensure the UK’s position as a […]