UK taxpayers can invest up to £20,000 every year tax-free in Individual Savings Accounts - ISAs; there are a range of ISA wrappers each with different characteristics

The Cash ISA and Stocks & Shares ISA have been around since 1999, but they have been joined by a number of new account types as the government tries to encourage us to take more personal financial responsibility; the Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) has been around since April 2016 and as a 'packaged' - Do it For me - investment sits very comfortably with Muckle's ambition to engage the next generation of investors.

The IFISA allows P2P or marketplace loans to be sheltered from tax for the first time; the sector started slowly due to the difficulty in getting regulatory approval, but there are now more than forty FCA approved providers offering the wide range of products we consider here. Your ISA allowance of £20,000 can be invested in full in one IFISA or divided between different types of ISA up to that maximum, each giving you slightly different options. In addition, basic-rate tax payers have a personal savings allowance (PSA) which means they can earn up t £1000 of interest tax-free; that could be from a P2P loan held outside of an IFISA.

The IFISAs we list vary greatly some are based upon property loans, others loans to small businesses and SMEs; still more combine the two. They also vary in terms the minimum investment they will accept, and the period of your investment - typically the longer the term, the greater the reward. As with any investment it is important that you fully understand what you are investing in, what your exposure to risk is, and what costs you will incur. Whilst some marketplace lenders operate a lifeboat fund to cover the cost of default, not all do; your investment will be diversified over a wide range of loans, but P2P lending is a relatively new phenomenon and it is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. P2P loans and the IFISA do not operate precisely like other investment types and here is a brief explanation of the search parameters that Muckle applies