A new p2p info site I'm starting - looking for feedback

Looks good to me too. A crisp, clean and uncluttered site with well-presented information. Good to see you've stuck to the principle of a picture being as good as a thousand words.

oldnick, jimbo, webwiz - thank you very much for the encouraging comments. It's very heartening to hear. Please don't hesitate to point out what you think could be improved, anything you think is unclear or misleading etc. I recognise that there's still a lot of work to do.

webwiz - I've thought about the time it will take to maintain and I think it's manageable. I spend quite a lot of time anyway following what's going on in p2p, so it's just a matter of updating the relevant sections. If the site can get a decent number of visitors, it may become worth the while of some of the platforms to add content themselves. For example, something I personally would find useful is a list of deals drawn from several sites with very short introductions to each deal, so I know whether they're worth investigating in detail. The sites themselves might be able to add that sort of content. But I realise that at first I'll have to do it myself.

Fair question about making money. I do hope the site can grow into a viable business. But I'm also fascinated and enthusiastic about p2p, so there's an element of pure interest for me. At first, I hope I can generate some income from referrals. I've got some ideas about how the business could further develop, but I'd like to find out what works and what doesn't in its present state first.

If p2p grows as I expect it to, I think there's definitely space for an independent site that has something for people of all levels of experience, from newbies to experienced lenders. It's yet to be seen if I'm the person to do it, but I'm going to give it my best shot. 

I hope you know that you need and FCA registration if you get any income from this? There are possible criminal penalties for those who make money from financial comparison sites without being registered. To be registered you will need to document your internal processes for keeping the information accurate and up to date. You are making money if you get referral fees even if the income is less than the cost of operating the site. I don't know whether there are the same sort of minimal capital requirements that apply to some other types of firm. If you are not making money there is no such requirement.

Sadly these new requirements have already caused one very useful credit card comparison site to remove all of its revenue generating and card comparison information because of the costs and hassle of complying with FCA requirements. So we as consumers end up suffering because of the abuses of the worst of the for-profit places and what the FCA does to try to control them.

Moving on to less sad things, your graphic that shows borrowers paying 12% and lenders receiving 1% is probably misleading. Consider things like this "I was just quoted a fee of £530 on a 3 year loan for £3800!  The crazy part was when it said your interest rate is 7% and after the fee is included, your Total APR will be 17.1%!!!". So in that case the lenders would get more like 35% of what the borrower is paying rather than the 92% suggested by your picture (assuming 6% goes to lenders after 1% lender fee). The borrower doesn't even get back any of the fee if they overpay or pay the loan off early. That P2P place varies the charges with each borrower so it's hard to know what the split is overall. It would be really interesting to have a table that shows how much lenders get of the amount that borrowers pay.

This statement is untrue: "Lenders should only be at risk of losing money if default rates on the personal loans made on Zopa go significantly higher than they have been in the past". Zopa offers the ability to resell loans and if that is done when interest rates are higher, those who sell their loans will suffer a capital loss sufficient to give the buyer the current market interest rate. Double the interest rate and the borrower loses half of the money they sell. The loss depends on the time remaining and amount of subsidy required.

For all P2x there are also the risks associated with lack of FSCS protection, from fraud, P2P provider insolvency and assorted other nastiness that we all prefer to hope won't ever happen. A major screwup in something like loan annual statements could even put the P2x place out of business because it's illegal to charge interest to a consumer for the year covered by an annual statement with errors in things like amounts remaining to be paid. Some banks have had to make large refunds to consumers after getting this wrong or even just missing some required words. Lenders are at risk of these things from the moment they lend their money, either if the nastiness happens or something causes them to have to sell.

Back to Zopa, this is not consistent with your table "default rates did go up, but even loans made in the worst years had a default rate of only roughly 2.5% per year" while the table shows a 5.5% default rate in 2007/8. That year was particularly nasty because it was in 2008 that lenders first discovered that what Zopa had been saying about losses being deductible from interest wasn't right (or was it 2009, I forget).

This is probably untrue: "Since Zopa introduced their Safeguard Fund in 2013, no lenders have lost money" and "No lenders making loans covered by the Safeguard Fund have lost any money". I don't know what you intended with your not lose money text. I usually take a statement like that to mean not lose any money, not just making more from the good loans than lost on the bad ones. I've lost money on a few loans at Bondora even though my interest income makes me way into profit overall, maybe 25 times as much interest as capital in defaulted loans, ignoring potential future recoveries. There are still loans that are not covered by Safeguard and lenders can lose money on those. I think that Zopa uses the payments minus defaults method and ignores inconvenient lenders with less than a few hundred loans and unlucky default patterns. Safeguard should make this all moot in the fullness of time, as older loans and arrangements on them end, though it'll probably take more than ten years for these old loans to go away. Even on loans covered by Safeguard it's likely that some lenders on Safeguarded loans have issued loans at one rate then sold at a higher rate and lost money as a result of selling. Not many and probably not much given the overall downward rate trend, but it's likely.

I've been pretty impressed with Wellesley. Their security structure and their principals being at risk before other lenders is very, very good. They also seem familiar with the FCA client money rules, a really good thing, though I don't know whether they now cover p2x or not. One big fund supermarket had to pay a large fine for getting this wrong for years.

I can't argue with most of what james wrote, but the above statement is not true.  As I explained a couple days ago on the Zopa forum...

Hi Ben,

great that you are live now. Lots of detailed information and presented in a well structured way.
I am looking forward to read your future articles

Claus

Hi, Ben.  A couple of things:  I DID reply to your PM but when I hit the return/enter key the whole thing disappeared, and i did not have the patience or time to redo it.  Now with summer as good as here I won't have time to look at it again before winter (unless we have a summer like the last one).

Which leads on to my next point and is related to your new site.  Unlike you, I'm not sure that P2P has as bright a future as you think.  Once conditions return to normal and one can pick up 3-6 per cent p.a through a BS or bank, how many people are going to go through the fag of daily monitoring and assessing of current and new investments?  Yes, there will be a hardy few - mostly those that haunt these forums and enjoy the entire activity - but how important are these people in the scheme of things?  I don't know but I do see large sums of money on FC being "invested" at the lowest possible interest rate for each risk band, suggesting there are masses out there who don't know what they're doing or don't want to spend any time trying to get a better return. 

Most people, I am certain, have no idea what rate of return they are getting and they probably think in terms of the headline rate which is quite misleading.  Once they see in £p how much they actually getting, and compare it with a conventional BS Bond - when normal times return, of course - I think they will leave P2P in droves.  While the P2P turnover is expanding rapidly at present, I see only rationalisation and a niche investment platform for a small minority in the future.

Anyway, all the best with your site.