Frequently asked questions.

Nester was first established in 2018 and is based in London. We operate as an online peer to peer (P2P) financing platform which will help you discover and invest in new property opportunities as an Investor or even help you finance your property (as a Buyer) depending on your individual needs. We believe in providing ethical and easy to understand information to all our customers.

Our role is to carefully select and evaluate real estate investment opportunities for listing on our platform. Our team’s decades worth of experience in real estate financing and financial law means that we can use our industry expertise to help create and facilitate relationships between Investors and Buyers. For further details of our role over the life of the agreement, see Investor FAQ’s and our Risk Statement.

We’re also here to answer any questions you may have when it comes to using our Service as we would like to make these processes transparent. You can email us at info@nester.com or call us on +44 203 983 0707.

Nester has been founded by individuals who have decades worth of experience in financial law, global banking and real estate financing. The information built up from these different sectors will help us provide you with exceptional products as well as being able to explain investing through our platform avoiding all the unnecessary jargon. We focus on creating financial empowerment for all and will always help break down barriers that may prevent you from progressing financially.

Our Service is also based on Islamic finance principles. This means we may use slightly different terms than you have seen on other Peer to Peer platforms. For example, we use the phrase “Buyer” where you may be used to seeing the word “borrower”. The investments we offer are called “Finance Requests”, rather than loans. More details about what Islamic finance means can be found in the Our Principles FAQ section.

Nester takes every precaution when it comes to keeping your personal information safe in line with Data Protection laws including GDPR. If you would like to know more, please see our privacy policy.

We take complaints very seriously and welcome all feedback. If you’d like to make a complaint, please email compliance@nester.com. We will then send you a copy of our complaints handling procedure, along with an explanatory leaflet regarding your ability to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are unhappy with our response. Our Complaints Officer will investigate your complaint and we will aim to get back to you as soon as possible. For more details on how we handle complaints, including the time frame we have to reply, please see our Service Terms.

You can register by clicking here. Once you’re through to the registration page, we just need you to fill in some initial contact information and then you can get started with tailoring your experience by either becoming a Buyer or an Investor.

Anyone over 18 years old who is a UK resident can register. However, it must be noted that potential Investors will be subjected to an ‘Appropriateness Test’ to ensure that they have an appropriate understanding of the relationship between the Investor and the Nester Service, and their exposure to the risks of Peer to Peer. Nester may accept Investors from other countries depending on their passing of the relevant checks.

Investors can invest in three core types of property financing arrangement offered to Buyers:

• Buy to Let

Commercial properties that are let to an unrelated tenant generating rental income for the Buyer. Buy to Let properties can include retail outlets, offices, dentist, warehouses, etc. This type of project will benefit from the income generated from the rent to service the Murabaha Instalments. The Buyer would typically seek a longer-term financing to align with the long-term nature of the investment by the Buyer. The maximum term for this product is 3 years.

• Refurbishment/ Light Development Facilities

Nester offers to facilitate financing for development or light refurbishment projects for residential or commercial properties. The Murabaha Instalments will typically be prefunded by the Buyer with the term of the facility short to medium in nature, up to 2 years.

• Bridging Facilities

Bridging facilities allow a Buyer to utilise a quick financing arrangement for a short period of time, typically 12 months. The maximum amount of cash would be held to service the Murabaha Instalments when offering a Bridging Facility.

The table below provides a summary of the criteria for providing finance to a Buyer and therefore an illustration of the type of investments you may invest in.

Please review each individual Finance Request for assessment of the credit risk.

All our Finance Requests offer our Investors a first ranking legal charge over the UK property being financed, the key mitigating factor of the credit risk associated with the financing.

The security package will be clearly identified and explained for each Finance Request, supported by the associated documentation. The security package may also include, assignments over rental income, cash held as security and/or personal guarantees.

Even though all agreements are secured, your capital is at risk and the security does not guarantee you a return. Please see our Risk Statement for further details.

Nester has adopted a minimum investment amount of £1,000. There is no maximum investment amount and is subject to the Financing Amount required by the Buyer.

No.

All our fees are payable by the Buyer. The Buyer pays the Murabaha Profit monthly which is earned by the Investor as their return. In addition, the Buyer pays Nester an Arrangement Fee to facilitate and manage the initial provision of financing, an Operating fee for the ongoing management of the transaction and in some cases an Exit fee where the repayment of the financing requires additional administration by Nester.

These fees are expanded on below:

• An Arrangement Fee which will be payable by the Buyer and will be charged upon execution of the financing. This will be a one-off fee charged as a percentage of the total financing.
• An Operating/Management Fee which will be payable by the Buyer. This will be as a monthly charge in line with servicing of the debt obligation. This will be an annual fee charged as a percentage of total financing paid monthly.
• Exit Fee which is to be paid by the Buyer upon repayment of the financing. This can be a fee between 0% to 2% (Based on risk).

Yes. As with all Peer to Peer investing, your capital is at risk. Please take the time to read through our Risk Statement page carefully as it contains important information about investing through the Service.

You are presented with a high level summary of the risk score allocated to an investment deal as a point on a heat spectrum with a representative rating to assist the illustration. Our minimum financing criteria, as detailed, acts as a base and therefore represents the highest level of risk the firm will consider with regard any opportunity. The risk will reduce as qualitative and quantitative factors, examples mentioned below, are incorporated within the assessment, our algorithm then produces an applicable rating or score. There are 9 positions across the spectrum, and they reflect the following ratings:

A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3.

C3 financing falls within the base lending criteria while A1 financing has the highest level of risk mitigation.

The risk rating is determined using an algorithm that gives a weighted score to numerous variables such as the Finance to Value, the location of the property, the Buyer’s credit score, and other factors.

Our credit committee, a panel of experts that approve each transaction, will consider whether the algorithmic risk rating determined by the scorecard reflects the risk for each deal presented.

If you are unsure about the risk of an investment or your ability to withstand the risk of investing, we encourage you to take independent advice from a qualified financial advisor.

Before allowing a Buyer to use the Service, we assess each Buyer’s creditworthiness and ability to afford to pay the Murabaha Instalments. We also carry out due diligence on the property that the Buyer will use as security, as explained in Clause 5 of the Nester Service Terms. We establish a risk rating for the Finance Request according to the estimated level of potential bad debt, which is communicated to Investors along with the methodology we use as explained above. We use this information to determine the rate offered to a Buyer.

Your uninvested funds will be held by Modulr FS Limited, which is regulated by the FCA as an Electronic Money Issuer. Your money whilst not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), your funds will be held in segregated accounts and safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011, for more information please click here.

Any extension requested by an existing Buyer will be considered as a new financing request. This means that we will undertake a full credit risk and pricing assessment before as the extension is approved. Existing Investors will have the opportunity to invest in the extension when it is approved and presented as a new Finance Request.

An Investor may choose to invest in a Finance Request at any time and subject to the Investor having enough funds. Once a Finance Request is selected for investment that amount chosen to invest is considered “allocated”. This ring fences the funds in the Investors e-wallet until the next profit payment date.

On the profit payment date, the allocated investment funds are then transferred and documentation executed. It is at this point the funds are considered “invested” and start to receive a return. While the funds are “allocated” and not “invested” the Investor does not earn a return and is able to cancel the proposed investment and withdraw their funds from their e-wallet.

You may invest in as many projects or ‘Finance Requests’ as you require. Please do however take time to read our Risk Statement and remember that your capital is at risk. It is advisable to diversify your investment across a few projects to reduce your exposure to one Finance Request.

Please also remember that if you are an everyday Investor or “Restricted” Investor, you must not invest more than 10% of your net assets in Peer to Peer investments.

Once you have invested in a Murabaha Contract, you should expect to hold that investment to maturity. As explained in our Risk Statement, our investments are illiquid, and you should not invest funds which you may need access to before the maturity of the investment. You will not have a right to withdraw once the funds have been invested into the Murabaha Contract.

We do however offer a secondary market, which will allow you to ‘sell’ part or all your investment, however there is no guarantee that there will be another Investor who wishes to buy your contracts.

We don’t deduct any tax from your returns; they are paid gross. The amount of tax you will pay will depend on your individual circumstances.

We will provide you with an annual statement showing any returns you have earned and if relevant, any losses you have incurred, to allow you to complete your tax return. Please do take professional tax advice if needed.

We will do everything in our power to ensure that in the unfortunate event we must close, we do so in an orderly manner. If we did take the decision to wind down, we would use the income we earn over the life of the Peer to Peer agreements supported by the Firm’ capital to fund an orderly wind down. We regularly review our wind down planning and our financial forecast to ensure that we will have enough funds to manage this process.

It is however important to also understand that your investment will not be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (“FSCS”). This is because peer to peer lending portfolios are not covered by the FSCS. Therefore, all capital invested in a Peer to Peer agreement or portfolio is at risk. Please see our Risk Statement for further information.

An ISA is an Individual Savings Account. It works like a normal savings account, except you don’t pay any UK income or capital gains tax.

There are 4 types of ISA available in the UK:

• Cash ISAs
• Stocks and shares ISAs
• Innovative Finance ISAs
• Lifetime ISAs

You need to be:

• Aged 18 or over for a stocks and shares, innovative finance ISA or cash ISA and 18 or over but under 40 for a lifetime ISA.
• A UK resident for tax purposes.
• Comfortable that the value of investments can go up as well as down.
• Prepared to invest for at least 5 years.

Please check on the gov.uk website for the permitted allowance for each tax year. This amount is set by HMRC.

You can put funds into each type of the four ISAs you qualify for in a given tax year, providing you do not exceed your total yearly allowance of £20,000.

You can apply to open an ISA account at any time, with the allowance beginning at the start of each new tax year, 6th April.

An Innovative Finance ISA (IF-ISA) is a type of tax-free individual savings account (ISA) that allows Investors to earn tax-free returns on peer-to-peer (P2P) financing, crowdfunding investments, and other alternative finance products.

Unlike traditional cash and stocks & shares ISAs, IF-ISAs allow Investors to invest their money directly in loans or investment opportunities, which are typically sourced through online platforms that match borrowers or companies seeking funding with Investors.

The aim of an IF-ISA is to provide Investors with greater flexibility and choice when it comes to their investments, while also potentially generating higher returns than those available through more traditional investment options. However, it is important to note that investing through an IF-ISA comes with higher risks, as the value of the investment can go down as well as up, and there is a risk of losing some or all of the capital invested. It’s important to carefully research and understand the risks involved before investing in an IF-ISA.

Go to the Sign Up page.

• You will need to go through the process of Signing Up as an Individual Investor
• Once you have completed your profile and entered your bank details, your details will be sent for onboarding approval.
• If your onboarding is approved, an Investment e-wallet account will be open for you.
• You can now Apply for an IF-ISA account.
• You will need to provide your National Insurance number and sign the IF-ISA declaration – PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY
• We will then assess your eligibility for an IF-ISA account up to 5 working days from submission.
• If approved, you will be notified and an IF-ISA e-wallet account created for you.

Please check each Opportunity for the minimum Investment Amount. At present the minimum amount to Invest in a Nester Opportunity is £1,000.

There are no costs or annual fees in opening a Nester IF-ISA.

If you deposit more than the annual allowance into your IF-ISA e-wallet, then any excess will be transferred to your Nester Investment e-wallet account.

• You can reinvest any profits you receive from your IF-ISA investments into any other eligible Opportunities, as long as they remain in your Nester IF-ISA e-wallet account.
• You are not able to automatically re-invest, due to the structure of Nester Opportunities, as this is dependent on the minimum amount permitted to be invested per Opportunity.

• You can transfer cash balance from your existing Nester Investment Account to your Nester IF-ISA Account (up to the maximum annual allowance).
• You cannot transfer Investments from your existing Nester Investment e-wallet into your Nester IF-ISA e-wallet. You would have to Sell your Murabaha Contracts from your existing Nester Investment and then Allocate using your Nester IF-ISA allowance.

• You can transfer your existing ISA cash balance from your existing ISA provider to your Nester IF-ISA e-wallet.
• Once you have been approved for a Nester IF-ISA Account, you will be presented with a ‘Transfer Authority Form’ (TAF) on the Nester website which you will need to complete and submit.
• Any amount transferred that is above the current years allowance will be credited to your Investment account.
• Any cash ISA balance from previous tax years will be credited in full and not taken from your current years allowance.
• Transfers can take up to 15 working days between cash ISAs and 30 working days for all other types of ISA’s (including IF-ISAs).

• Transfer Outs are permitted on the cash balance in your IF-ISA account. If you have Invested in an Opportunity, you will need to liquidate (sell). Your new ISA manager must submit a transfer request to us.
• The new ISA Manager will have their own Transfer Authority Form for you to complete. The ISA Manager will then have to send this form to us either from an email address registered on TISA/or by post alongside their payment instructions for us to review and process.
• We ask ISA managers to send these types of requests via email to speed up the process (platformsupport@goji.investments).

The Nester IF-ISA is flexible, meaning you can withdraw and deposit into the account, as long as your total deposits do not exceed your annual allowance.

Each year, you can use your permitted allowance to deposit into your Nester IF-ISA account. This means you can accumulate your balance and earn Tax free profits on the aggregated sum of your Investments, as long they remain in your IF-ISA account.

ISA’s are only available to UK taxpayers.

• HM Revenue and Customs will monitor ISA returns provided by all financial institutions.
• If an Investor exceeds their ISA allowance, they won’t get any tax relief on the excess payments made. As of 6 April 2024, Investors can pay into multiple ISAs of the same type.

Unfortunately, we do not offer any ISA products for anyone under the age of 18.

Nester’s IF-ISA Manager is Goji Financial Services Limited, which is a company incorporated in England and Wales under company number 10234133 with its registered office at 10-12 Alie Street, London, E1 8DE and:

• is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 805323;
• is approved as an ISA manager by HMRC

You can become a Buyer by first registering with Nester by Signing up as Buyer on the nester.com website. Once you’ve registered, we will need some additional information from you relating to your financial position in order to carry out our due diligence checks.

• Once you have registered as a Buyer, you may proceed through the Buyer dashboard to upload the information required by the Nester team to review your Finance Request. The Nester team will be in contact to request further information and confirm whether financing can be approved in principle prior to full approval obtained from the Nester credit committee, a board of individuals selected to consider each transaction.
• You should note that Nester also works with several Brokers that introduce new transactions and Buyers to Nester. They assist Buyers collate and submit information on their behalf to Nester for review.

Yes, but as per our Service Terms, you will need our written consent. Once received, you will need to complete the onboarding process, including passing the appropriateness test, before you can invest.

The Buyer seeking finance to acquire, develop or refinance a UK property must be a UK resident and either a company, limited liability partnership and sometimes can be an individual.

If any of the following are identified in relation to the Buyer, senior management or ultimate beneficiary, this would preclude the application from proceeding:

• Convictions relating to fraud or dishonesty, including where a sentence is spent
• Serving a prison sentence, on a licence or awaiting trial
• Under 21 years of age at application
• Poor Credit History, such as outstanding county court judgements.

Where the security package includes a personal guarantee, we will always seek permission to obtain a credit report on the individual(s).

We request that all Buyers contact the Nester team if they are made aware of any situation that may result in an inability to satisfy their obligations. Subject to the terms of the financing agreement, the Nester team will work with the Buyer to facilitate their remedy of any breach.

Yes. Fees include the following:

• An Arrangement Fee which will be payable by the Buyer and will be charged upon execution of the financing. This will be a one-off fee charged as a percentage of the total financing (dependent on risk)
• An Operating/Management Fee which will be payable by the Buyer. This will be as a monthly charge in line with servicing of the debt obligation. This will be an annual fee charged as a percentage of total financing paid monthly (however risk based).
• Exit Fee which is to be paid by the Buyer upon repayment of the financing. This can be a fee between 0 to 2% (based on risk).

We have included the following matrix, extracted from the Firm’s Financing and Credit Policy, as a guide to assist Buyers determine whether Nester’s products are suitable for their needs:

Learn more

Ethical and Islamic finance prohibits the use of financing to acquire properties which support businesses that are considered to have a negative social impact. This includes businesses that operate in the following areas: gambling, sale of alcohol, firearms, gaming and conventional banks and insurance companies.

In addition, interest-based loans are prohibited. The structure that is used to provide finance between a Buyer and Investor is based on a widely accepted contract which uses a deferred purchase and sale to create the debt obligation based on an agreed cost and mark up of a specified commodity. This contract is known as a Commodity Murabaha and discussed further below.

The Islamic Finance industry is one of the fastest growing financial industries worldwide with over $2 trillion invested worldwide, estimated to grow to $4 trillion by 2025. In addition to most high street banks and US banks that operate in this sector, the UK Government has now issued two Islamic Finance based sovereign bonds to reinforce London as an international and financially inclusive hub thereby also reinforcing that Islamic Finance is now a mainstream product.

Nester strives to ensure its products are ethical, transparent and fair for both Investors and Buyers.

There are a few core elements related to a Commodity Murabaha which are broken down below:

How does a Buyer pay for the cost of financing for any given period?

The Buyer agrees to purchase commodities (typically metals like aluminium or nickel) from the Investor at a price of cost + profit (i.e. £100 +£10). However, the Investor agrees not to receive payment for the commodities until an agreed time in the future. Obligation to pay has been created.

But where did the Investor get the commodities from?

Nester acts on behalf of all Investors and has an agreement with a broker with a trading platform allowing it to buy metals instantly at an agreed rate that is held as required. It acquired the metals at the ‘cost price’ (i.e. £100).

So, the Buyer now has commodities but no cash?

Nester acts on behalf of the Buyer and sells the Commodities through another broker on the same trading platform for the cost price (i.e. £100). As Nester has an agreement between both brokers it can net the purchase of the commodities in (1 and 2) above with the sale of commodities here in (3) on behalf of the Buyer and Investor.

How does the netting of the purchase and sale of commodities result in the Investor providing the Buyer with funds?

Nester, acting on behalf of the Investors, ‘buys’ the commodities through a broker (Broker A) – agreeing to pay Broker A the cost price (£100). Nester, acting on behalf of the Buyer, agrees to ‘sell’ the commodities through a broker (Broker B) for the cost price (£100). As Broker A and Broker B can net their positions, in effect the Investors transfer the funds to the Buyer to settle this arrangement.

Does this happen every month and do I need to do anything?

This takes place periodically and typically on a monthly basis. This process is automatic and the Nester platform will perform this role on behalf of the Buyer and Investor.

How do the Investors get their money back?

The Commodity Murabaha has an overarching long stop date or maturity date. This is technically the date of repayment of the facility. On this date, the Buyer will pay both the profit and the principal outstanding, replicating a typical financing repayment.

Yes, and you can access the certificates through the links below:

Shaikh Nizam Yaquby

Amanah Advisors

Mufti Muhammad Nurallah Shikder