BondMason Reviews 

55
•
TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

1.3

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely shocking delivery delay. First date provided was moved by two days, now its 7 days past the delivery date and its not even anywhere near the country I live in. Shoddy customer service as yo... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

This is not P2P. You actually loan money to Bondmason, which then uses that to buy an IOU from a separate, but associated, company called Bondmason Client Ltd. As per the T&Cs... “Lenders have... See more

Company replied

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

they change the terms of your investment mid term, i never reached the target rate of 8% before fees and never will now thanks to BM upping the charge from 1% to 1.5% on all invested funds, im not a v... See more

Company replied

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Money with them for over six months and so far making a loss due to cash drag and loans not repaid. Will not use this company again. I have investments in over 10 other places and never experienced su... See more

Company replied

Company details

  1. Investment Service

Information provided by various external sources

BondMason make it easy for investors to target net returns of 6% p.a. by enabling clients to invest in Direct Lending the smart way. Invest from £5,000+ I No tie-in I 1.0% - 1.5% fee p.a.


Contact info

1.3

Bad

TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

55 reviews

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1.3

All reviews

(55)

1 review in the last 12 months

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Rated 4 out of 5 stars

a unique service

super simple to set-up and monitor - although i would appreciate more information on the details of individual loans that i'm invested in and their performance - details like platform, term remaining, default status,

2 March 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Hassle free managed P2P investment

Everything to date has been exactly as advertised. Opening the account was easy, adding funds straight forward and I received prompt confirmation from BondMason that the funds had been received. I have yet to liquidate any investments with BondMason so cannot comment on that area yet.

Communication is both prompt and jargon free, giving me a high level of confidence in Stephen Findlay and his team.

2 March 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Bond Mason

Only been a member for 2 months. But so far so good. Easy to invest and the returns look good. Unlike some other investment sites the money seems to be invested very quickly.

2 March 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

working well

all working well, BondMason are doing a good job and are responsive to my questions. I like it so far, no reservations and have recommended BondMason to others

2 March 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Painless, low hassle

One of the easiest ways to a good return with very low hassle. It really is far more transfer-and-forget than any other P2P site, with good returns and low fees. It would be nice to see a bit more detail on the individual investments, and to have a bit more control on asset classes, though.

2 March 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Impressed

I have just read BondMason's reply to a one star reviewer and am impressed by the tone of the reply and the detailed information in it.

I have tried a few P2P platforms. I won't stay with all of them for various reasons. But, in my opinion, BondMason is worth staying with. I am very risk averse so wouldn't give 5 stars to a P2P platform. Keep up the good work!

17 November 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Prompt response

Currently invested in four p2p sites, BondMason has impressed me by the speed of response to my enquiry, early days for me with BM but given my experience to date I will be investing more with them.

Twelve months on, still impressed, site being wound down most of moneys returned and all done in a very professional way, I wish that other p2p sites had conducted themselves in a similar way

15 November 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Very clear platform

Easy to use and the platform clearly shows where my money is and how the interest grows on a daily basis.

14 November 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Thanks to Steve and the team!

I've just finished my quarter as an investor and have been pleased by all aspects of the BM service to date.

Steve, and several other team members have always been quick to respond to the questions and the few concenrns that I have had. Their support has given me the confidence to invest a mid-five figure sum on the platform and the interest has rolled in steadily. I am not aware of any defaults nor issues with my current 150+ loans that are spread across different borrower types.

In contrast to some of the larger and largely automated P2P platforms at BM you do perceive close ties between lenders and those in the office putting your capital to work. However, being human, they do in fact take weekends off, and deposits that don't make the cutoff of a Friday may not appear in your account until the next working day, i.e the following week (note to self!). Similarly, I am aware that a small percantage of my investment has not been continuously allocated, and therefore, has not been earning interest.

Overall, I'm happy with the service and have recommended it to friends/family. I look forward to increasing my investment in line with my desired asset allocation. Thanks!

14 November 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Not P2P - No FCA Authorisation - No loan security

This is not P2P.

You actually loan money to Bondmason, which then uses that to buy an IOU from a separate, but associated, company called Bondmason Client Ltd.
As per the T&Cs...
“Lenders have no recourse against either the seller or the borrower under the loan related to the receivables in the event that the receivables are not paid to the BondMason Customer Funds Account.”

There are large, professional, Investments Trusts listed on the London Stock Exchange already doing this, ie. P2P Global, VPC Specialty Lending and Funding Circle SME Income Fund. None of which are returning above 7%.
How a brand new (very small) platform can outperform the professionals is highly questionable, and extremely risky - especially when they have no FCA accreditation!

6 November 2016
Unprompted review
BondMason logo

Reply from BondMason

Mary - thank you for taking time to write a review. It does not appear that you have a funded account with us. So I assume this review is based on a review of our website and publicly available materials, rather than the actual experience of our service. Nonetheless, I will to respond to your points here in turn. Please excuse if these are robust, but given the nature of your comments I'm sure you'll understand why this is necessary. Please do contact us again though, either in this forum or directly, should you have any continuing concerns or questions: invest@bondmason.com.

"Not P2P": P2P takes many forms. We use a Receivables model - primarily to enable our clients to access a greater range of opportunities. Roughly one-fifth (by value) of P2P platforms use the Receivables model, including for example, LendInvest and MarketInvoice, which are two of the biggest and longest standing operators in the market.

I would also like to point out that when investing in the investment trusts you are either purchasing shares or buying a position in a fund. Neither of these investment products are strictly P2P either. But, like us, they are all correlated or linked in some way to the P2P and Direct Lending asset class.

"Loan money to BondMason": this is incorrect. You purchase receivables from BondMason Client Ltd, which is separate to the operating entity of BondMason Group Ltd. There is no lending to BondMason. The only economic interaction between our clients and with the BondMason operating company is the 1.0% p.a. fee.

"Large investment trusts": some of the reasons we are able to outperform include (i) we haven't suffered the same level of cash drag (ii) our clients don't have volatility from the stock markets (iii) we have a proprietary technology platform that enables better distribution and (iv) our fees are generally lower. You may like to see an article we published on this a while ago: https://www.bondmason.com/considering-listed-p2p-investment-trust-bondmason

"How can we outperform": we are very proud of our track record, and we are outperforming - this is a fact, not subjective: we've made 1,100+ loan investments over the last 12 months, and our clients have achieved an average gross return of 8.9% between October 2015 and October 2016. Precisely because we are not structured as a fund, the NAV return (net asset value return) is exactly the same as the gross return released by our clients.

"The professionals": our investment team is led by Stephen Findlay, Graham Martin and James Wallis, who have collectively in excess of 50 years investment experience and have been investment managers and/or been investment committee members on funds totalling in excess of £2BN. The BondMason team is a professional investment team. Please read more on our About Us page: https://www.bondmason.com/bondmason-about-us-code-of-ethics)

"No FCA accreditation": we were one of the first companies accepted onto the FCA Innovation Hub, having met the FCA's eligibility criteria which includes being significantly different, innovative and offering a good prospect of providing benefit to customers (https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/project-innovate-innovation-hub/eligibility). We've been working with the FCA, and lobbying, to extend the current permissions to include our new and innovative business model. This led to an application being submitted on 19 December 2015 which will extend the scope of our activities and is toward the final stages off review by the FCA. We are operating in their full knowledge, and with the appropriate process, policies and procedures, and the senior team have all been FCA Approved persons, and in some cases still are.

"Extremely risky": we focus on the secured-lending and asset-backed end of the P2P Lending market. As noted above, we've made 1,100+ loan investments over the last 12 months. Only 3 of these have gone into default: 2 have had full recovery, and the other one is expected to result in full recovery in due course. I would suggest that this puts us at the lower-risk end of the P2P and Direct Lending risk scale.

In closing: thank you for taking the time to write and engage with us (for the avoidance of doubt, I mean that sincerely). If you do have an account with us, and have concerns relating to your account with us, please do bring these to our attention: invest@bondmason.com. If we are correct, and you don't have an account with us yet, we would invite you to try BondMason as, like all of our clients, we're confident you'll be pleased with the service.

I realise that you have a certain perspective of our service, but that doesn't stop us from caring about your opinions and wanting to enable you to be fully appraised of the facts when deciding when, where and with whom to invest or deposit your capital.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Easy and personal

The signing up process was prompt and I appreciated the personal response to the initial queries that I had about investing polices. I look forward to being updated with BondMason news.

22 October 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Minimum effort for reasonable returns target.

For time poor capital rich this site does the work of choosing and managing the investments for you. A conservative target rate is better than many in the same type of market.
A way in to the invoice financing exposure with less than the usual minimum investments per loan.
Better qualified people assessing loans should help avoid some of the bad debts we see on p2p sites.
Slow, but within company stated time, to fully invest your funds.
Very rapid and candid responses to e mailed questions.
Negative is that an investor does not know which loans on which platforms they are exposed too. This makes the balancing of ones portfolio impossible.

6 October 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Great platform, good interest, highly recommended

Not everyone is comfortable with taking risks. But by investing in a large number of individual loans the risk is greatly reduced. Doing this yourself may bring higher returns but time and care is needed. BondMason offers to do the hard work by spreading your investment into 50 or 100 loan parts. You can opt for automatic reinvestment of both capital and interest. BondMason subtracts a 1% fee for the work but a return of 7.0%pa or more can be expected. The website is updated daily to show the detail of each loan together with accumulated interest. A minimum opening deposit of £1,000 is required though. I opened an account a few months ago to see how it all works and my wife has joined in because she likes the "invest and forget" formula.

2 September 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Best I have used

I have used many peer to peer lending sites over the last 5 years and this is the best by far, they manage my account for me only investing in carefully selected loans, they have diversified my account and after fees and currently no bad debt to date (6 months) I am still archiving 8.3% after fees.

The customer service is brilliant, replying to emails in minutes answering all questions, really can't fault bondmason, earning great rates of return without the need to monitor my account 24/7 well done Bondnason

1 September 2016
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Responsive to clarification - moving over the fence

See below for update:
I am still a little unsure of Bondmason, it took ages for my money to become invested and Bondmason takes charges from the word go. Having been invested for 2 months the income is more accrued than paid and some investments seem to be invested and returned without interest and I can't work out whether interest is accrued or the investment didn't pay anything. Not as transparent as I would hope. I will give it a while longer but still sitting on the fence...

Update - Having conversed with Bondmason and obtained clarification of my concerns, I am happy to say that my issues have been cleared up and I am happy to remain invested and watch the performance over time. Bondmason have been receptive and communicative and have cleared up any issues I had... Thank you....

1 July 2016
Unprompted review
BondMason logo

Reply from BondMason

Jon - thank you for taking the time to provide a review. To answer a few of your questions:

- Time to get invested: we estimate it normally takes 7-28 days to be fully invested. This is consistent with your account (without sharing specific details publicly here)
- Our fees: we only charge fees on invested funds, not on cash. So you are only charged fees after your money is invested.
- Accrued vs. paid interest: as you've only been invested for a short period of time, this is what we'd expect to see.
- Investments not appearing to repay interest: all investments repay interest, we don't have any investments that don't repay interest.
- Not as transparent as you would like: you can see detail on all of your underlying investment positions, you can login to see your account balance and return statements at any point. This is available for every client.

We can see that your net return is on course to beat the target 7.0% p.a. net return. Hopefully this provides you with some comfort when deciding which side of the fence to fall on!

Many thanks,

BondMason team

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