P2P trusts: 'We only invest in loans we know will stand up to 2008 market conditions'

Trend comes under fire

As peer-to-peer lending comes under fire from critics, including former FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner, Hardeep Tawakley looks at three P2P trusts and asks the managers about their investment strategies and how they control risk in their portfolios

P2P Global Investments Less than 18 months after launch, P2P Global Investments (P2PGI), the first peer-to-peer lending investment trust, was already one of the biggest trusts on the London Stock Exchange, having raised over £800m through several fundraisings.  The trust targets an annual 6%-8% dividend yield by investing in over 180,000 loans from 16 carefully selected platforms from a global base of more than 200. Many of the platforms, particularly those based in the US, are not available to individual investors. The majority - around 60% - of P2PGI's lending book is from US cons...