This closure in focus was not recent, but it was a significant one to address here. The Lending Well was the first company to trial peer-to-peer payday loans through this project. P2P has become increasingly popular in prime markets, mostly due to Zopa who pioneered the concept. However, they have published default rates of just 0.03% that shows how selective they were with just who could enter into their network. The idea of peer-to-peer loans for bad credit may grab headlines, but getting it to work was never going to be easy, especially since payday loan default rates are known to be very high (historically between 10% and 20%).

The Lending Well loans became active in 2012 when they launched at www.thelendingwell.com. The closure didn’t take long with this service closing down in March 2013 and so they had only lasted around a year. On launch, anyone could pour cash into a large pool that was then funnelled to their borrowers. Those placing funds were promised a headed 12% return. This was a short term product with repayments stemming from 10 to 31 days. This covered possible loan sums of £100 to £750. Interest was charged at 1% daily and there was a required fast transmission fee at £6. This company employed the services of Wickedweb to craft www.thelendingwell.com.

They carried out a great job and logins were attached here. Interestingly, there was another company (PiggyBank) that tested the waters with P2P. When they did this, they offered their own cash at first, but as the case here the strategy didn’t work and they soon reverted to fully lend out of their own pockets (they are still active today). Whilst it may be the end of The Lending Well brand, they have kept their website live that remains in place. Here they have been collecting email leads and they have made it clear that they will return one day. We will look forward to see just what they can come up with. Update: They have relaunched, but as a P2P investment company only.