We are going to be reviewing a few peer-to-peer lending sites and also tracking the revenues and bad debt from each platform every month, we have already setup and added a £1000 investment in our Zopa review and now we are setting up our account with another big name in the peer-to-peer lending industry; Funding Circle.

Funding Circle Perks

1. 6.1% average rate of return.
2. Just 1% annual fee on the amount of money you have lent
3. Bad debt rate just 1.4%
4. Minimum lending bids of £20 means you can spread your investment easily reducing risk
5. Monthly repayments

For this Funding Circle review we are adding £500 to our account, not as much as Zopa but it’s all I have, but hopefully with high rates of return our pot should slowly grow.

Funding circle takes a more hands on approach compared to Zopa’s very much hands off approach, on Funding Circle you have more control where your money is lent allowing you to control risk and rewards better. For me, who knows very little about this, I’m thinking this is perhaps a bad thing but actually it’s quite simple to get your head around.

To find out more on how Funding Circle work please see their own explanation here.

Now lets go over how we got on setting this up.

Sign Up

Easy and straight forward, I also really like the design on Funding Circle, clean, simple and easy to understand.

Depositing Money

Debit or bank transfer are the options available, I’ve blanked out the bank details for Funding Circle but on the actual page they are there under Bank Transfer.

How long did it take for fund to be available?

Not as quick as Zopa but funds where deposited within 20 minutes.

How soon will your money be lent?

Funding Circle has by far been the quickest to lend my money. Within 10 minutes of funds being deposited the automatic bidding system had already placed £130 in bids on my behalf. None have been accepted yet by the loan requesters but I am hoping some will be accepted soon. I will keep a watch out for when my bids get accepted and report back.

How will it perform?

That’s the exciting part, we’ll be tracking this month by month to keep you updated with everything that happens on the account. Stay tuned.