Peer to peer loans trading – How our loan exchange can help investors

Recently, our guest blogger, Katie, published her step by step guide to the FundingKnight loan exchange.

She was keen to point out that the loan exchange can be a great way to begin your FundingKnight journey.  After all, buying part of an existing loan (rather than bidding to get involved in a current auction) has several advantages:

You can start earning interest immediately

Since these loans are already live, your money starts working as soon as you “buy it now”.  No need to wait for an auction to end, no need to worry about getting out-bid and not having the chance to re-submit your offer.

It makes spreading your investment easier… and quicker

Most people agree that spreading out your cash (diversifying your portfolio) is a good idea.  It helps minimize risk because you reduce your exposure to any one loan failing.

But waiting for new loans to come on stream can be time consuming, particularly if you’re using a new platform with less loan traffic.

The loan exchange can help.

Instead of bidding on new loans, you can instantly buy parts of existing ones.  That gives you instant access to all the loans that were listed before you started investing and provides the perfect way to quickly spread your investment out thinly.

You can choose shorter investment periods

Existing loans have obviously been running for some time before you buy into them, in fact, some will only have months left to run – meaning that you enter loans knowing exactly what interest rate you’ll earn (assuming no defaults) and exactly when your investment will be repaid.

And of course, if you need to access your cash earlier than planned… you simply head back to the loan exchange.

Selling part of a loan is easy, too…

When it comes to selling part of your investment – perhaps because you want to switch to another loan or simply because you need to access your cash – we’ve tried to make things as simple as possible.

Rather than having to sell your whole loan in an “all or nothing” way, you can choose exactly how much of any investment you want to sell and whether you want to apply a discount or premium to the original price.

This flexibility can be useful if you want to invest a large sum into a loan but know that you’ll soon want to sell part of your investment and buy into newer loans to speed up diversification.

It’s a feature that Steve Lee – who featured in this  investor Q&A about peer to peer lending – singled out for particular praise.

We asked Steve, “are there any FundingKnight features you particularly like?” and this was his reply:

I’m impressed with the way that the loan exchange works, letting you buy and sell loan parts.  Say I have £500 to bid, I often want to do 5 x £100 bids at the same interest rate.  On most sites I have to do it manually five times and keep scrolling to the bid rate that on a tablet or phone is not easy. 

 

FundingKnight allows you to split up an investment and only sell part of it on the loan exchange, giving you the option to state exactly how much you want to sell at any one time.  In my opinion that makes it a superb solution, the best one available on any of the platforms I’ve used.

 

To visit the loan exchange, log on to www.fundingknight.com, choose Find a Loan from the menu on the left hand side and scroll down to see the loan exchange.  If you’ve not already signed up, register for free via the FundingKnight website and enjoy fee free crowdlending for investors.

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Customer participation at the heart of P2P Lending

Why suggestions from you are the key to constant improvement.

(This is an excerpt from a full post published on the P2PMoney blog)

Back in November, I wrote a post about how P2P finance fits into the model of collaborative consumption – otherwise known as the sharing economy for the blog over at P2PMoney.

I made the point that collaborative finance didn’t necessarily need to equal ethical finance, social lending or any other type of ‘do-gooding’. Whilst some of the by-products of crowdlending might very well be good for the wider world (local lending for instance), most investors are in it for the returns, for the chance to make their cash work harder than it would do left in a straightforward deposit account. And that’s absolutely fine.

That doesn’t, however, break the link between P2P finance and the sharing economy. One thing that unites most of the new peer industries that have popped up over the last few years is participation. Peer based businesses need people to participate, whether that’s using someone else’s couch as a bed for the night, sharing a car or borrowing a Boris bike or participating in P2P finance.

By participating, I mean more than simply transacting. After all, transactions happen 24/7 in banks around the world. Participation is about contributing something more to the project, connecting with fellow users or participants and actively trying to make the overall experience more efficient and rewarding for everyone involved.

To read the rest of this article, visit the p2pmoney blog and to start crowdlending with FundingKnight, register as an investor or borrower via the FundingKnight website.

The Loan Exchange – A Step by Step Guide

So you have chosen to invest your money into FundingKnight’s peer to business lending scheme. Congratulations!

But now what to do with it?

There are a few choices for the uninitiated to make when investing in FundingKnight loans, such as which company you want to get behind and lend to, how much you want to lend and lastly the method in which you lend.

The first two choices of who and how much are fairly self explanatory but the method of how you lend is an interesting one.

Investors have two choices. You can bid on current new loans where you’ll be bidding in a reverse auction against other investors with the lowest bids – in terms of the interest rate you offer to lend at – being accepted to form the final loan.

The alternative lies in The Loan Exchange. This investment is no longer a live auction but rather, if we look at it in terms of those well known online auctioneers, ebay, a “buy it now” option.

And the process is ridiculously simple. Register as a lender on FundingKnight and deposit an amount of cash that suits you and your investment needs. You are now a bona fide lender and head straight to the my money page. You’re getting close…

  

Now it’s time to choose the business and loan you want to invest in. Head to ‘Find a Loan’ and expand The Loan Exchange option.

You’ll find lots of different loan parts available to choose from.  These are investments that existing FundingKnight lenders already hold but are choosing to sell on, perhaps to release their cash, or perhaps just to spread the investment across more loans ad diversify their portfolio.  Some will be small parts, say £25, others will be much larger, say £1,000 or more.

Choose the loan part you would like to buy.

Click on ‘Tell Me More’ and everything you need to know about your prospective loan terms, returns, business information, turnovers, financial history and more is there to read in clear, jargon free plain English.

And this is where FundingKnight comes into its own: it’s a simple and clear process, user-friendly and quick. Any questions you might have will be answered here but if you need to know more then FK are more than happy to get back to you with further information.

Then one you’ve chosen and done your research (and providing you have enough funds in your account!) it’s a one-click process, just “buy now” and submit. Success! You are now a peer to peer lender!

So why would you want to “buy it now” rather than bid on a loan?

Even to a newbie like me, there are some clear advantages that might make you opt to “buy it now” rather than bidding. Clearly the danger of being outbid is removed and the process is quicker – and we like quick. Also, even if there are aren’t live loans online available to bid on, there will always be loan parts available to purchase on the loan exchange. Sometimes time is of the essence and a one click process is all you have time for.

Another plus point is that it helps you spread your investment and diversify your loans and that keeps it interesting – as well as spreading out your investment to reduce the risk that one bad loan will wipe out the returns on your whole portfolio. It also allows you more flexibility as you are able to invest in past loans that have already come and gone, no matter when you registered as a lender.

The loan exchange also lets you choose shorter term lending periods as some of the loan has already been paid off, leaving less time for the rest of the loan to run. This allows your money to go in and out faster than it might if you bid on a current loan.

Sometimes, it might even be cheaper. Because the investor selling may want quick access to their cash, they might offer it at a discount and everyone loves a bargain right?

And for those who may be slightly impatient (and I count myself in this!) you won’t have to wait around for your cash to start earning interest. No need to wait, get involved straightaway and start to see some returns as soon as possible.

You can find out more about becoming a FundingKnight lender here or click on the Katie’s crowdlending journey to find out more about my adventures in peer to peer finance.

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FundingKnight review and some more media mentions…

As another loan successfully closes, this time giving Secure Archive Solutions the funds it needs to expand, it’s good to see that the word is spreading about how crowdlending can help boost business finance here in the UK.

TheBusinessDesk.com reported our recent P2P business loan to Secure Archive Solutions

We also got a mention on one of the Guardian blogs, courtesy of Modwenna Rees-Mogg who mentioned FundingKnight in her post about why crowdfunding is increasingly popular for SME financing

 

FundingKnight launch reviews:

Via the blog at p2pmoney: Launch of FundingKnight

P2PMoney founder, Ian Gurney, wrote:

“Looking at the website, it is well designed with clear graphics and colour schemes.”

 

On the wiseclerk.com P2P Banking website: FundingKnight launches auctions

 

Thanks to everyone who’s helping to shout about what we’re doing at FundingKnight.

Can crowdlending regain trust in business finance?

2012 ended with a flurry of news about crowdlending and peer to peer lending and it seems that January has continued the trend with plenty more articles cropping up to discuss how alternative finance can help restore faith in a beleagured financial system and  provide the business funding that our economy needs to grow.

Since the whole concept of peer to peer is about sharing, we thought it would be good to share one of our favourites, a post from David Pitcher published over at SunZu (previously ecademy).  David’s post asks whether peer to peer lending can restore trust in finance for business and has sparked some interesting comments.

Recently I saw a T-shirt on which was printed:

‘Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank.
Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.’

Some businesses are still feeling betrayed by banks because they have not been lent the finance they need to develop or continue trading.
It seems to me that a key issue about banks is about their trustworthiness . After all, a run on a bank is only the loss of trust that the bank can keep our deposits safe even if they are actually safe.

Trust

Trust is the basis of all business and personal dealings. No amount of legislation can actually replace that personal and corporate trustworthiness, established, tested and proved over many years. Sadly and foolishly some unscrupulous businessmen including some bankers have done the unthinkable – for personal gain they have ‘at a stroke’ betrayed and squandered that ancient trust.
The response from a friend who is a retired senior banker was one of anger and disbelief and he simply asks ‘Whatever happened to ‘my word is my bond’?’

To read the rest of David’s article visit the SunZu website

Crowdfunding accountants: Invest in abacus Franchising

New loans are now live on the FundingKnight website, offering the chance to start investing in abacus Franchising.

Abacus is a national network of qualified accountants, supporting small businesses in all aspects of accountancy and taxation.

There are two separate auctions providing a chance to invest in British business:

1 – year loan of £20,000

3 – year loan of £30,000

Each loan will be crowdfunded, using the FundingKnight investment community to attract investors.

You can start investing with as little as £25 and peer to peer lending is fee free with FundingKnight.

To lend to British business you need to register as a FundingKnight investor.  Once that’s done, you simply log onto www.fundingknight.com and choose Find a Loan to start investing.

You decide what to invest in, you decide the rate that you want to bid and you have the chance to access your cash whenever you need it by selling or all or part of your investment to a new lender via the FundingKnight loan exchange.

Read about the abacus loans below, or for full financial analysis and information log onto the FundingKnight website.

Business seeking funding: abacus Franchising Company Limited

Loan 1:

Amount: £20,000

Period:  1 year, repayable in 12 installments

Loan 2:

Amount: £30,000

Period:  3 years, with a 3 month repayment holiday

Auction duration:

Fast track auction of up to 14 days, to close when both loans have been filled at the reserve interest rate.

Reason for loan:

Expansion, following new contract awarded by Scania GB.

Business background:

Incorporated in 2004, abacus has developed a national network of qualified accountants who support SME businesses with all aspects of accountancy, taxation and administration functions.  The network has over 3,000 clients. Its collective fee income would make it one of the top 100 accountancy firms in the UK. Abacus is the only national accountancy franchise for qualified accountants approved by the British Franchise Association.

The loan is to provide finance to support the expansion of the business following an award of a new alliance with Scania GB to provide services to its customers.

Find out more, or search for new loan opportunities by registering as an investor with FundingKnight.

Our next online peer to business lending auction: LeisureBench Ltd.

We are pleased to announce that the next online auction has just gone live on the FundingKnight peer to peer lending website

This time we’re offering our registered lenders the chance to invest in LeisureBench Ltd.  LeisureBench were our first loan customers and have already successfully paid off their first loan.  We are delighted that we can now offer them the benefit of a full live auction process.

You can read more about the investment opportunity below and, if you haven’t already registered as a lender, please do take the time to sign up as a peer to business lender with FundingKnight.  You never know when an opportunity might pop up that’s just too hard to resist…

Business looking for funding: LeisureBench Ltd.

Amount: £50,000

Period: 9 months, with 4 month repayment holiday

Auction duration: 13 days

Reason for loan: Stock purchase – Garden Furniture

Business background:

Established in 2004 as a specialist furniture supplier and garden furniture retailer, LeisureBench has built a niche in importing outdoor furniture and buildings for the commercial sector, particularly the pub and public sectors.

LeisureBench is a fast growing dynamic company able to adapt quickly and efficiently to new trends and markets.  As direct importers with partners in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, LeisureBench develops its own unique product ranges at very low cost price enabling them to compete at every level.

We lent £110,000 to LeisureBench in January this year, which has been fully repaid. This is the second of three loans we are arranging for LeisureBench to fund stock purchases for the 2013 season.

Add funds to your account:

You will need to allocate the appropriate funds to your account to complete your investment. Log on to FundingKnight and go to Add Funds in your My Money account. Remember you can invest as little as £25.

Bid now

Once funds have been applied to your account (It typically takes 24 hours for the bank to transfer the money) simply go to Find a Loan to find further information on the business and the loan opportunity and to make a bid.

Katie’s crowdlending journey: Can current savings rates beat inflation?

In October 2012 inflation, as measured by the CPI (Consumer Prices Index) index, rose from 2.2% to 2.7%. The increase was not anticipated by many and has therefore caused a mild kerfuffle, if you will, in financial circles, let alone to your average ordinary FundingKnight blog subscriber reading this now…

The reason behind the mild horror that has ensued as a result of the CPI announcement is due to the financial repercussions of said increased inflation on the economic health of UK savers.

So, for example if you, YES YOU, are a basic UK taxpayer, contributing 20% of your earnings to the lovely HMRC, you will now need to find a savings account that offers an interest rate of 3.37% (according to moneyfacts.co.uk) which, in this day and age of pretty pathetic savings options available on the high street, is nigh on impossible.

Well, I lie, it’s not wholly impossible but still fairly hard to achieve. Research offers the following statistics: 52 out of 2532 banks would be able to offer basic UK taxpayers an inflation beating savings account. That’s 2.1% of everything out there folk (State Bank of India anyone?) and that sounds to me like a fairly sad state of affairs for people looking for a sound return on their hard-earned cash stash.

Equally, if you are a higher rate taxpayer, lining the pockets of the taxman with 40% of your salary, then you would need to seek out a savings account that paid out nearly a whopping 4.5% interest rate in order to beat that darn inflation index and this is, in fact, actually impossible. At this time, as I type, there are no non-ISA accounts in existence that offer these rates.

A proper UK based savings sob story no? Well yes it really is, so here’s one final sum of misery from The Daily Telegraph money pages to send you on your way and then lets all go on a spending spree:

“The impact of inflation on savings means that £10,000 invested five years ago, allowing for average interest and tax at 20pc, would have the spending power of just £8,899 today.”

Food for thought, for sure. I would love to hear your comments, suggestions or top tips.

Who does FundingKnight lend to?

As a complete beginner to the world of finance and loans, I am going back to basics again with this post. I want to get right to the very core of what FundingKnight can offer businesses looking for a loan.

Looking at the FundingKnight website, it seems like a very straightforward process but in my mind there must be huge amounts of criteria that you would need to meet before even beginning to think about applying let alone the actual paperwork that organising a business loan must entail.

I am endeavouring to find out more, so I asked FundingKnight a few questions about what their basic principles were behind their lending offer.

FK: We specify the following three points for companies looking to borrow money from us:

• The business must have at least two years trading history
• They must be limited companies registered at companies house
• And finally, they must be UK based businesses with a UK bank account

KK: It all sounds pretty reasonable to me and extremely straightforward, but there must be more things to consider beyond approaching FundingKnight as a legitimate business enterprise? Surely you would want to ensure that you are investing in something that is a sound prospect with a solid financial future? As otherwise couldn’t any old debt ridden business be able to approach yourselves in dire straits?

FK: Yes, that’s completely true, lenders come to FundingKnight to get a good financial return and in our approach, there are three key things we look for and to balance applications against, ensuring we lend to the right companies:

• Is your business well managed?
• Are you realistic about risk?
• Will your business generate enough cash to repay our lenders?

KK: Ah ok, that’s more like it – still, it seems very simple and straightforward and basically clear, common sense which has got to be a good thing.

FK: Yes, we think so and we want to make the process as clear and easy as possible as after all, we want to lend money in the same way that businesses wish to borrow money. It’s a win-win situation!

Many of our lenders also want to give the economy a boost and no doubt as FundingKnight grows many will also use it to lend locally but first and foremost people expect a sound return on their money so it’s important to have some good ground rules governing who can apply.

KK: So you don’t offer loans to start-ups?

FK: No we don’t. That’s not intended to suggest that start-ups aren’t a good investment – some are – it’s just that they typically need a different type of funding and benefit from a different type of investor.

KK: Excellent work. Thanks to FundingKnight for idiot friendly responses and I hope that my ignorance will help other people get involved and take advantage of the clear benefits that FundingKnight offer.

An introduction to peer to business lending – part 1

FundingKnight is delighted to be spreading the crowdlending message over at Smart Accountancy Systems blog this week.

Peer to business lending (P2B), also known as crowdlending, crowdfunding or peer to peer lending is a relatively new way for businesses to access funding and business loans.

Put simply, a business applies to borrow some money via a P2B website or online marketplace.  Their application is credit checked and analysed and, if successful, offered up to the general public using a P2B Lending platform to share details of the loans on offer.

Everyday savers and investors bid to participate in loans, each contributing as much or as little as they choose, so that one business loan is made up of lots and lots of little loans from individual savers.

Businesses benefit from a new source of business finance and savers get a chance to make their money work harder.

So how exactly does peer to business lending work?  Where did it start and what are the key things to be aware of?

Continue reading the full post at Smart Accountancy Systems.