Beginners guide

- Minimum bid size on new listings (primary market) is £1k and its £1k increments
- There is however a secondary market, so with amortising loans you can pick up smaller chunks. Do be a bit careful on the SM, it operates a discount/premium scheme (a little unintuitively perhaps) but it does not take into account accrued interest in the way it auto prices. Some loans are interest roll-ups, some are qtly payments, so it is a bit of a minefield unless you know what you are doing (IMHO).
- there are the TLCs - not tender loving care but thin cats lending club - loans. Consider these as pooled resources which are then used to bid into a number of loans; hence you can get greater diversification from a smaller comittment. I don't use them, and I'd be careful about picking up on the SM: some of these are into a pretty small number of loans (handful) and hence some are shall we say a touch underperforming.
- Mix of auction loans and fixed rate loans. Good fixed rate loans go fast (FFF) (unless they are large). The one really good thing about the TC systems is the dynamic bidding capability. If you are going to bid on a variable rate auction then make sure you use dynamic bidding (set your rate and your lowest acceptable floor rate) rather than a static bid. The system will then adjust your bid downwards accordingly until you are kicked off because the prevailing max rate is lower than your floor. eBay in reverse. I am in constant bewilderment at those who continue to put in static bids and end up with a rate lower than they could have got. Bizarre. 
- once yoiu deposit money, you should get access to the TC 'second' forum: this has a welter of information and forumites who will provide guidance; there is also a members generated user manual, information maintained on TLC performance etc. 

Hmm.  Can't see it. Maybe if Thincats was your only platform, but I view loan diversity as spreading over multiple platforms if the loans are similar.

Fair enough. I would add though that whilst one can assume that failures are random it seems to me that recoveries are not: certain types of security have far better recovery rates than others. Several failures have resulted in me altering the types of loans I invest in.

I have been disappointed with some of the defaults in TC, and have been burnt on several loans that supposedly had security!  I am avoiding all of the "business" loans, that don't have strong security and avoiding anything finance.
Energy with strong security and strong property loans, are still investible, although some the 2nd charge and low LTV property loans are still off limits.

I expect that a p2p site that states that all loans are secured, to actually "talk the talk" and when loans default, I expect that members/lenders, to be able recover 50-100%; yet iv'e been in loans where the recovery rate is dire.  

I value TC for the diversity and would like to see more loans to "real" businesses.  Having said that, quality does vary and you have to be selective.  I look to the business first and the security second, because experience has shown that the security can melt away.  The one area where I've had my fingers burned is lend to lend, but overall I am very happy with my return.

I have been tempted into property loans on TC (perhaps because I'm not on SS) but I won't be adding more property for the time being unless the LTV is low or it has characteristics that make it a good asset in a downturn (such as a long term assured income stream).

D-day on Monday?

Playing devil's advocate, isn't it only two tier because people are choosing not to receive the offered information? Slightly analogous to not opening your mail and then complaining you didn't know what was in it?