New P2P community lending network Quakle launches

Quakle credit checks its borrowers but is different from other peer-to-peer lending websites in that members also have a 'reputation score'. This score is based on their individual behaviour and that of any group they may be part of within the site. This peer group system encourages people to be financially responsible.

Josselin Digny, Director at Quakle said: "This is peer-to-peer lending for community-minded people. The concept of peer-to-peer lending is now well-established but Quakle is different because we combine lending with true social and community networking. Not only do we encourage people to get to know each other on the site, but they can join forces to form groups. People's reputation scores are affected by the financial behaviour of their peers and vice versa. This peer group community encourages people who are good with money to stick together and support each other."

Quakle offers investors a good return on their money and borrowers can obtain credit at reasonable rates. Unlike other peer-to-peer lending sites, investors are not charged anything to loan money - in fact Quakle is offering £30 to anybody who registers as a lender.

Borrowers make loan requests, which are open for a period of ten days. During this 'auction' period, lenders can bid to fund a proportion of these loans and can propose the interest rates at which they are prepared to lend. When the auction system finds a match, the lenders and the borrower enter into a legally binding loan contract.

People are at the heart of Quakle

The Quakle website is user-friendly and the community encourages open relationships between members. People can sign up with friends and family if they want and can lend money between themselves in a structured way. Lenders can also get to know new borrowers on the site and offer to fund their loan requests.

In an innovative move, Quakle has introduced 'sharing' features which allow borrowers promote their loan request outside the site itself. This means borrowers can share their loan request with their Facebook network via a special button and indeed on other websites, blogs and forums via a simple html code.

Josselin added: "We've taken the best bits of the peer-to-peer lending market to date and tried to improve them further. The amount of money invested and borrowed would typically be lower than through some peer-to-peer sites and the terms of the agreement shorter and therefore more flexible. If you are an investor who is fed up of getting poor returns, then it might be worth checking out Quakle."

Security and regulation

Quakle is registered with the Office of Fair Trading and HMRC, plus it is the only peer-to-peer lending site to be regulated by the FSA as a small payments institution. All members are ID checked to verify they are who they say they are and all borrowers are credit checked with the Experian database. Quakle checks for CCJs and for any history of insolvency. These checks result in a credit grade awarded by Quakle which ranges from A to D, A being the lowest risk.

The Quakle website itself is secure because information is encrypted and the site is verified by Thawte, the online security company.