YES-secure

YES-secure was launched in 2010 and is from the company that operates YES-pay.  It uses a listing style approach pioneered by Prosper in the USA where borrowers can provide information on the purpose of the loan along with their financial information.  YES-secure will group the borrower by risk category from A* through to E.  They facilitate both personal and business loans.

YES-secure was rebranded as Encash in April 2012, but the company name and URL are still YES-secure.

Lenders are charged a 0.9% annual fee, and borrowers are charged several fees, including an application fee (unlike any other P2P provider).  Lenders are also able to sell their loans at more or less than face value on a secondary market for a 1% one-off fee.

Unique selling point

YES-secure allows lenders to invest in higher risk markets unlike other P2P companies.  As such lenders are able to set their rates as high as 18% AER.  YES-secure also operate a social model of connections between lenders and borrowers, however it remains to be seen how this of benefit.

Competition

As YES-secure is operating in both peer-to-peer and peer-to-business arena, and is the fifth largest provider, but currently has less than 0.5% of the total market.  As well as competing with all of the peer-lenders, YES-secure would be competing with the high street banks, building societies and online lenders.

Comments

The web site was recently rebranded as Encash and this is a great improvement.  Communication has been very patchy in terms of responsiveness on the forums and replies to emails, with some emails being ignored, and no replies to questions raised on the forum.

The loan rates on YES-secure were considerably higher than the other peer-lenders, but YES-secure have recently reduced the maximum lending rates in order to bring down the loan rates.  It is possible that some borrowers would not be able to raise funds elsewhere, hence the higher rates were being taken up.  The lending rates are now that in some markets, with the predicted bad debt rates, taxpayers could be better off leaving their money in the bank.

YES-secure published their bad debt data in 2011.  There was a large bad debt of more than 45% in the "A+" and "A" markets in 2010 which should be for the lowest risk borrowers, but in the higher risk markets the bad debts were less than expected.  The overall bad debts are considerably higher than other P2P providers.  The bad debt rates in the "A+" and "A" markets were such that an diversified lender setting their lending rate at the maximum permitted would still have experienced a negative return.  On a positive note the bad debts for 2011 are significantly less than those of 2010, however with the reduction in lending rates it would be better for some taxpayers to keep their money in a bank.  These comments should also be taken in conjunction with the bad debt warning below.

General	Communication		2/10
	Ease of Web Site		6/10
	Innovation		5/10
Lending	Lending Rates		3/10
	Fees		6/10
	Access to Funds		7/10
	Bad Debt		1/10
Borrowing	Loan Rates		3/10
	Speed of Loan		5/10
	Fees		3/10
Overall			4.1/10

For an in-depth analysis and comparable statistics please refer to the comparisons of the peer-to-peer companies.

In summary if you are prepared to accept the higher risk of bad debt as a lender and don't pay income tax, or are prepared to pay the higher loan rates as a borrower, then YES-secure could be for you.

Bad debt warning - bad debt can take months to years to materialise, and therefore the actual bad debt figure may not be fully representative, especially when a company's loan book is growing at a significant rate (for example for the first two years Zopa bad debt was 0.05%)

YES-secure review written by Ian Gurney, last updated on 18^th October 2012