Simon

Oct 8, 2024

Abundance

Abundance, nowadays, categorises the types of loans you can make through its platform as being to companies or councils. This wasn’t always the case. Most of my investments were made before councils were added. In fact, there were disappointingly few offerings at the time - certainly not enough to diversify risk away from individual loans. Of those I selected, few have been satisfactory, many have defaulted and I’m likely to make an overall loss. For balance, I’d say some but not all of my loans might have been rated as high risk and the economic environment of recent years has likely had an adverse effect. But to have so many failures is still, I feel, unacceptable. Abundance might further reasonably point out that they are up front in highlighting risks (the FCA presumably requires them to be). But they’re less vocal about the significant brokerage fees they command and, unless you’re directly affected, you’ll struggle to find details of their failures. The cuddly looking website continues to attract investors hoping to profit in a socially responsible manner and, given their poor track record with companies, it may be that Abundance are quietly pivoting to councils. Trouble is the returns on council loans are bettered by many bank accounts, which also tend to have FSCS protection. Having noted the awful state of Birmingham City Council’s finances for example, I personally don’t trust Abundance council loans to be entirely trouble-free. In future, regardless of the type of loan, I’ll be avoiding Abundance Investment. I’ll also get any remaining invested funds out as soon as I can, if they ever become liquid.