Key Investor Information

Lending money using a P2P lending platform should be treated as an investment and as with all investments your capital is at risk. In other words, the risk you face in lending money is that if the borrower cannot repay the loan, you may lose some or all of your capital.

Lendwise has strict lending policies which ensure that all borrowers are subject to comprehensive checks before being approved and made available to you on the Lendwise platform. This includes credit checks with credit reference agencies, identity checks and creditworthiness and affordability assessments taking into account income and outgoings.

Lendwise does not lend to businesses or in relation to property.

Interest earned from peer-to-peer lending is taxable, but whether or not you need to pay any tax depends on your personal circumstances.
You may not be required to declare your income if your total interest falls within the Personal Savings Allowance (£1,000 of interest each year for basic rate taxpayers and £500 for higher rate), and/or if your interest is earned within the Lendwise Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA).

If you do need to pay any tax, please note that we do not make any tax deductions from your account, so you’ll need to declare your income to HMRC separately. To declare your income you’ll need to include your P2P interest on your Self Assessment Tax Return under the section ‘Interest and dividends from UK banks, building societies etc’. If you don’t normally complete a Self Assessment Tax Return, you should let your local Tax Office know about your P2P interest so they can advise you. If you pay tax under Pay As You Earn (PAYE) your tax code will then normally be adjusted to collect the tax due on the interest you have earned.

We summarise your total earnings in your lender account statement. It remains your responsibility to pay any tax due on interest and other payments received in relation to your loans. We do not deduct any tax from interest or other sums paid to you.

The tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may be subject to change in future. If you have any questions on tax you should seek advice from an independent financial or tax advisor, or from HMRC, whose details are set out on their website at hmrc.gov.uk.

As with any investment, lending on a P2P platform means there are risks involved. As a result, you may not receive the return from the investment that you expected because of defaults or losses.

A default is a breach in any of the conditions of the loan such as failure to make a timely payment.

When lending money there is always a risk the borrower may default and in some extreme cases the capital may be not be repaid leading to losses. This is different to a default. Losses can occur after defaults, but not necessarily every time. For more information on how the loans made available on Lendwise are performing, see our Statistics

When a borrower misses a payment (either interest and/or repaying the initial capital amount borrowed), Lendwise will step in and take steps to recover the amounts that are due to the lender. To learn more, see Actions Lendwise will take in the event of a default or loss.

One way to minimise the probability and impact of borrower defaults is to diversify your lending portfolio by lending small amounts to a large number of borrowers. For more information, check out Ways you can diversify your lending portfolio .

Rates of loan interest / investment return on our website are shown as gross rates.

We do not charge fees to our lenders currently but you should make allowances for tax and expected default rates and losses (as explained above) when calculating your likely net return.

This will allow you to make a more meaningful comparison of likely actual returns to other forms of investment.

It is important for our lenders to be aware that, like all P2P lending platforms, Lendwise is outside of the scope of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (“FSCS”).

This means that, should a P2P platform fail for any reason, those investing (lending) directly via the platform would not be able to claim compensation from the FSCS.

As a business, Lendwise is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) and therefore is subject to the FCA’s regulations governing P2P platforms and firms with consumer credit licences.