The P2P lenders vying for £500m of Zopa and Funding Circle IFISA money
Around £500m of Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) money could be up for grabs by peer-to-peer lenders.
ISA season is heating up as the end of the tax year approaches and the IFISA market has two notable absences after P2P lending giants Zopa and Funding Circle confirmed their exits from the sector during this tax year.
The latest publicly available stats suggest that as of 2019, Funding Circle had £380m in its IFISA and Zopa had £150m, giving a total of £530m.
That money is in old IFISAs from previous tax years that can be kept in the accounts to retain the tax-free status or it could be transferred elsewhere by P2P investors looking for higher returns.
Most active providers would obviously welcome these funds, but here are the P2P lenders making a public play for Zopa and Funding Circle IFISA money.
Assetz Capital
The business lender was quick off the mark in December when it encouraged ex-Zopa investors to move to its platform, which it described as “by far the largest active retail P2P lender in the UK.”
Chief executive Stuart Law said it is “sad” to see Zopa leave the P2P market, but pointed out that its departure means that Assetz is now the largest retail P2P lender in the country.
Law added that the platform expects to continue to deliver attractive returns and plans to scale up its operations “significantly” over the coming year.
Folk2Folk
The rural business lender issued an open letter to Funding Circle investors earlier this month once the P2P lending giant confirmed it was quitting retail P2P lending.
“We feel it is important for retail investors to know there are still platforms that remain committed to providing you with this service,” Roy Warren, managing director of Folk2Folk, said.
JustUs
JustUs offered a new home to Funding Circle investors last week.
Lee Birkett, chief executive of JustUs, said he was staggered that more of the platform’s regular account investors have not opened an IFISA and said he would welcome Funding Circle investors.
Invest & Fund
Invest & Fund reported record IFISA account openings earlier this month and said it is expecting further increases from Funding Circle IFISA transfers.
“We expect to see further increases in new investor inquiries in the peak ISA season and welcome clients looking to transfer their IFISA from Funding Circle to continue receiving inflation-beating returns,” Invest & Fund said.
These are of course just some of the IFISA providers on offer and investors have plenty of options to earn their P2P returns tax-free this tax year, even without Zopa and Funding Circle.