lovefruitful.com

They were originally called Crowd Mortgage Limited and raised funds with CrowdCube, of which I was a very small participant in the equity funding:

www.crowdcube.com/investment/crowd-mortgage-limited-12476

AFAIK, the £5/month from the Halifax isn't tax-free, but it is net of basic rate tax.  So it is considered to be £6.25 gross less £1.25 tax.  I don't know whether non-taxpayers could complete a R85 and receive the full £6.25/month but, if not, they ought to be able to claim the tax back from HMRC.

I have a moderate toe in the water with Fruitful.

My findings/impressions are:

1. Signups are controlled by a waiting list for investors; you need to apply for an invitation. I waited for about two weeks I think.
2. Admin and communications are very good. I had enquiries and a problem (my own fault) dealt with swiftly and efficiently.
3. Ultra simple product offering for investors, and streamlined graphically-clean website.
4. As mentioned by drum previously, care is required over the interest payment conditions. I made detailed enquiries about this, and was answered by their Chief Technical Officer. It seems that one's investment is assigned to specific loans (I get the impression this is a small number of loans,) and notional interest is only assigned to the investor's balance on the day of the month that the loan payment is due. My concern is that if I pay in several deposits on different days of the month, then withdraw some funds, I would want to choose those pounds that do not carry much accrued interest as opposed to those that might have say, almost a months accrued interest. The CTO said they had plans for "…tools to give better visibility of when your interest payments are due/and from what borrower".
5. There is protection from a 'canopy fund'.

For me, my initial impression that this offering was suitable as a short-term home for funds has been corrected, and I am now happy to cautiously use it for limited-scale medium-term investment. In terms of rates and flexibility, it is certainly more attractive than Wellesley for example, though my gut reaction says there is more risk.

Hi webwiz. Hmm, yes. Reading back over that last post, I've not been very clear, have I.

To be honest, I'm not absolutely sure on this, but as I see it, interest is added one month after monies are deposited. If you withdraw the money before that date, you get no interest.

Simple enough so far. But what happens if you pay in a second amount half way through the month, then make a withdrawal. Which batch of money does the withdrawal come from?

The answer I got from the company was that oldest money is withdrawn first. Anyway, this is less of an issue if you are investing for medium term.

On a more serious note... I did sign up for a fruitful account. I loved the website, the language used, everything about it... but I didn't give them a penny of my money, purely because to get my money out of my account, there needed to be other borrowers kicking around to purchase my shares in the mortgages. All of this is hidden to the user, so for all I know, fruitful is running at it's maximum capacity, and there isn't any spare money 'kicking about' to buy my loan parts when I want to cash out. I'd never know. A lot can change in the 10+ years I'm planning on parking my money there...

Sure, fruitful could fill the gap, but how sustainable is that? The whole business model relies on there being fresh cash available all the time. But without that extra money around, it could all come crashing down on itself, and I'd never know better until it was too late.

With products like ratesetter, funding circle etc. there is an 'end in sight' to the loans I've put money into, and usually an option of getting my money out sooner if I'm willing to take a hit on the interest.

Unless I'm missing something here (perfectly possible), it seemed to me that fruitful would have some crashing down eventually without a constant influx of new cash.