P2P lending has evolved as the best mode of investment among the community of investors. Not only investors but borrowers are also finding P2P lending more quick and comfortable compared to traditional lending which involves many manual work and papers. Because of the rising popularity of P2P lending, the P2P lending industry will reach $150 billion by the end of the year 2025.
However, P2P lending is not completely risk-free. If you end up choosing the wrong P2P lending platform, your investment turns into the financial regret of your life. The availability of many P2P lending platforms makes it even worse to pick a genius one.
Considering the gravity, I’ll list out the top P2P lending platform. To make this list diversify, I will include the best P2P lending platforms of different P2P lending markets. Since I have developed many P2P lending platforms, I own a great understanding of the working of such online investment tools. Meaning, only precisely-developed, feature-packed and legal P2P lending platforms are factored it.
Funding Circle
Funding Circle is the UK-based P2P lending marketplace which enables investors to lend money directly to the borrowers who run small and medium-sized businesses. When back in 2010, Samir Desai, James Meekings, and Andrew Mullinger started Funding Circle, it became the first P2P lending platform in the entire UK. As of mid-2019, Funding Circle has granted thousands of loan applications worth more than £7 billion. Services of Funding Circle are available in Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Pros:
- A borrower can get a loan in only 10 minutes.
- Loans are very secured.
- They are having very transparent terms.
- They offer a loan for any business purpose.
Cons:
- It requires a personal guarantee from the owners.
- If a borrower fails to pay the monthly installment on time, he needs to suffer a 5% penalty fee.
Mintos
Mintos is another very popular UK-based P2P lending platform. It was launched in 2015 and since its launch, it has been providing an easy and transparent way to both investors and borrowers to manage their money. To facilitate growth, Mintos has bagged £7 million in funding.
As of now, Mintos has attracted 215307 investors from 69 countries who have invested € 3988394948 in different 20244475 loans. Not only individual investors, but Mintos is also working with 70 lending companies from 31 countries to lend more to borrowers. The Mintos P2P lending platform is equipped with automated algorithms that invest investor’s money automatically and wisely. Moreover, Mintos offers the same returns whether you invest € 30 or € 300 000.
Pros:
- It is a large platform.
- Investors can invest as minimum as 10€.
Cons:
- A few loans don’t come with the buyback guarantee.
Upstart
Upstart is among a few very disruptive USA-based P2P lending marketplace which was first launched in April 2012 by Dave Girouard, Anna Counselman, and Paul Gu. They launched Upstart as the Income Share Agreement product which lets people lend the money by signing a legal contract of sharing a share of future income. But in 2014, Upstart revamped it to the loan marketplace.
As of now, Upstart issued the loans of $5.1 billion. And its 69% of the issued loans are fully automated. Unlike many other P2P lending platforms, Upstart takes non-traditional variables into account to predict the creditworthiness of the users. This non-traditional variable includes education and employment. Because of a very customer-friendly approach to calculate the credit score, people prefer Upstart over other P2P lending platforms.
Pros:
- Upstart offers loans at as low as 5.69%.
- Upon approval, borrowers receive the fund within 1 business day.
- Upstart calculates the creditworthiness of borrowers while not being aggressive.
Cons:
- The loan origination fee is up to 8%.
- It offers limited repayment term options – 36&60 months.
I2IFunding
I2iFunding is the India-based P2P lending platform that connects verified borrowers to investors. It was founded in 2015 with an ambition to offer affordable loans to borrowers. It offers loans for many purposes such as medical expenses, education expenses, debt consolidation, and purchase of consumer durable. However, the i2iFunding platform calculates the credit score of borrowers aggressively, by considering the 40+ variables. But this aggressive credit score model helps both i2iFunding and investors to minimize the risks.
Using the i2iFunding platform, investors can lend money to borrowers directly. But to start using the platform, investors have to pay INR 590. And if an investor invests more than INR 50,000, he has to pay 1% of the investment amount as the fee. Not only investors but borrowers are also required to pay several fees. To register on the platform, they have to pay INR 118. They also have to suffer from a processing fee. The minimum processing fee is INR 2000 + taxes.
RainFin
Amid no harsh government regulations, Africa is the gold mine for the FinTech startups. Some of the fastest-growing startups in the entire world come from Africa. RainFin is one of them. It was launched in 2012 by Sean Emery and Hannes Van Der Merwe to compete with the traditional lending model which was very poor in terms of rules, interest rates, and other benefits. Even in 2019, RainFin is actively working to conquer the African P2P lending market by removing traditional lending costs and barriers for the borrowers.
The main reason why people prefer RainFain is its fee structure. Unlike many other platforms, you don’t have to pay the registration fees. Many other services like transfers to RainFin bank account, transfers to a SA bank account and representation rights verification are also fee. However, RainFin charges 1.15% of the investment of 6 months, 0.91% of investment of 1 year and 1.15% investment of 2 years from the investors.
P2P lending is one of the easiest ways to raise funds and to lend money. Market presence of a few very serviceable P2P lending platforms which offer groundbreaking features makes it even easier. However, when it comes to investing money, you should use only trustworthy tools.
All P2P lending platforms we have discussed in this blog are verified and genius. Though many of our listed P2P lending platforms charge you more, they offer relatively extensive services and security.
So, even if you select a P2P lending platform that is not in this list, you should not drive your decision based on the additional fees, but you should drive the decision based on one question: whether do you need that paid additional service or not? If yes, pay extra for it, without thinking twice!
