P2P Investing - Interest

[Teddy555]

When you are choosing a p2p platform to invest money in, what do you initially look for - higher interest rate or reputation of the business? I see some of the smaller and newer p2p platforms offer better rates than the big ones such as Ratesetter and Zopa, but how safe is this? Any advice?

Higher rates imply higher risk. Your protection from bad borrowers defaulting is the quality of the credit checking and systems that are used.

On that basis I would stick with those that have been around longest and have the greatest experience of credit checking.

I have been with Zopa for some time now and it's been a pretty good experience with only a few defaults (bad loans I'll never get back).

They have a new insurance scheme too which protects from any loss that's worth looking at.