Post by tony46 on Jan 31, 2018 12:57:47 GMT
Brief intro - 20-odd years ago I was a naive victim of pension transfer mis-selling, but after a long, tough battle received generous compo via the FSCS and Financial Ombudsman, which I put into a Pru FTSE250-tracking pension fund, and later bought an annuity at the right time just before the crash and recession began. So very lucky there, but wary of making similar mistakes again I have only saved not invested since then.
Fed up with current savings rates, as we all are no doubt, I have just signed up to the forum this week, as a complete potential newbie to P2P and some of the terminology, but thinking of a small (<£5k) trial IFISA investment before tax year end. Looking through some of the posts in General Discussion and RS, Z, AC etc platform-specific topics I gather there can be many potential pitfalls which I would obviously prefer to avoid, eg. long waits before one's cash is actually loaned out and earning interest, high rates of loan defaults, loans paid back too early then re-loaned at lower “market rates”, etc, all of which mean a platform's advertised headline rates aren't actually achieved. Also, to make gains in my pension fund above, I had to monitor/manage it daily and sometimes quickly switch into cash & back again to minimise sudden losses. Now that I’m older, though retired, I don't really want to have to keep checking my funds daily again - been there, got the t-shirt. Is that possible or too risky with P2P lending do you think?
So, any independent advice, help or tips from experienced investors would be much appreciated. Objectively, with hindsight, and bearing in mind that even some headline “up to” interest rates aren't so much better than say a 5-year fixed rate savings bond which needs no monitoring, would one still recommend P2P? If so, which platform would people recommend for reliability, looking after lenders interests, etc? Or perhaps a well-managed (HL?) investment fund which can look after itself more might be less of a gamble instead?
Many thanks
Fed up with current savings rates, as we all are no doubt, I have just signed up to the forum this week, as a complete potential newbie to P2P and some of the terminology, but thinking of a small (<£5k) trial IFISA investment before tax year end. Looking through some of the posts in General Discussion and RS, Z, AC etc platform-specific topics I gather there can be many potential pitfalls which I would obviously prefer to avoid, eg. long waits before one's cash is actually loaned out and earning interest, high rates of loan defaults, loans paid back too early then re-loaned at lower “market rates”, etc, all of which mean a platform's advertised headline rates aren't actually achieved. Also, to make gains in my pension fund above, I had to monitor/manage it daily and sometimes quickly switch into cash & back again to minimise sudden losses. Now that I’m older, though retired, I don't really want to have to keep checking my funds daily again - been there, got the t-shirt. Is that possible or too risky with P2P lending do you think?
So, any independent advice, help or tips from experienced investors would be much appreciated. Objectively, with hindsight, and bearing in mind that even some headline “up to” interest rates aren't so much better than say a 5-year fixed rate savings bond which needs no monitoring, would one still recommend P2P? If so, which platform would people recommend for reliability, looking after lenders interests, etc? Or perhaps a well-managed (HL?) investment fund which can look after itself more might be less of a gamble instead?
Many thanks
