Investors in the UK are anxious for new innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA) options with P2P lenders as the new tax year begins; the IFISAs were launched for P2P investing nine months ago however limited options still remain due to the authorizations given by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); it is expected that the largest providers, Zopa, Funding Circle, Ratesetter and LendInvest, will receive authorization however it has not been granted yet from the FCA; platforms currently offering IFISAs include Abundance, CrowdStacker and Crowd2Fund; Folk2Folk is currently the largest lender authorized with plans for also launching an IFISA. Source
With competition heating up for investors p2p lending platform Ratesetter is now offering £100 for opening a new Innovative Finance ISA with the platform; the company launched their IFISA in February and are advertising a 5 percent return on the highest risk product. Source.
Landbay, UK Bond Network, Downing and Peer Funding will use Goji to offer investments in Innovative Finance ISAs (IFISA) in the UK; the offerings are anticipated to launch before the tax deadline; Jake Wombwell-Povey, Goji co-founder and chief executive officer, said: "We're signing up an increasing number of platforms who are keen to offer their investors a best of breed IFISA service. There is a great deal of complexity in bringing the IFISA to market and we are focused on ensuring that it is as easy as possible for investors to access this new opportunity to drive returns. Interest in this new and attractive investment vehicle is not surprising given the low yields available on traditional fixed income and savings and increasing inflation." Source
MoneyThing has announced its authorization from the UK Financial Conduct Authority; says it will no longer be pre-funding loans and revising its terms for new lenders; plans to seek HMRC approval for innovative finance individual savings accounts. Source
LendingCrowd has launched its innovative finance individual savings accounts (IFISA); the account has a minimum investment of 1,000 British pounds ($1,250); the account investment will be automatically allocated to a portfolio of LendingCrowd loans; the portfolio will target a rate of return of 6% for its investors; the IFISA product has been well received with the Lending Works IFISA launch attracting more than 500,000 British pounds ($624,850) within three hours. Source
Ablrate was recently authorized by the FCA and is now launching their custom Innovative Finance ISA; Ablrate offers a self-select marketplace where investors hand pick the loans they look to invest in; this is one of many products the company will launch in this arena; Ablrate facilitates asset-backed loans with specialization in aircraft and capital equipment; they currently will take cash deposits for their IFISA but no transfers as David Bradley-Ward, CEO of Ablrate, tells AltFi, "We want to be able to get everyone going with their IFISA first and then allow transfers in from other providers after the first week of our launch." Source
Landbay has received its individual savings account approval from HM Revenue and Customs; follows the firm's full Financial Conduct Authority authorization in December; plans to launch its innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA) in February; the IFISA will allow tax-efficient investing in the firm’s residential property loans. Source
ISA statistics were released on Thursday by HMRC; last year two thousand Innovative Finance ISA accounts were subscribed with retail investors collectively investing GBP17 million (USD $22 million); this compares to GBP22.325 billion ($28.94 billion) into stocks and shares and GBP39.191 billion ($50.81 billion) into cash ISAs; about one third of money invested into IFISAs on P2P platforms last year was from transfers; while the accounts opened and amount invested were low it still shows appetite for such products. Source
FundingSecure has received its HMRC approval and launched its IFISA; FundingSecure offers secured loans and markets annual returns of 12% to 16%; investors can invest up to GBP20,000 ($25,569) in the IFISA in 2017 according to UK regulations. Source
Abundance sold 72% of all Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) products in the last year; this represented 62% of investment into the new product overall; while the P2P lender is happy with their success they realize their market lead will diminish as they were one of a few platforms approved in the last year; a host of other platforms, including top lender Zopa, have been approved recently and the numbers are sure to be more widely spread out among a larger group of platforms; Bruce Davis, co-founder and joint managing director of Abundance, tells AltFi, "Abundance's success is very much the good news part of the Innovative Finance ISA story to date." Source