Peer-to-peer lending and borrowing still sounds to many people like something new and incomprehensible and alarming.

If you’re one of these people, please read on.

Peer-to-peer is not going to go away. It’s going to get bigger, and for the most part it’s already a demonstrably successful emerging investment class.

And much of it is well managed and transparent. Risky? Yes, of course it entails risk. It’s about lending money. Like so much else.

No doubt, in due course, a peer-to-peer business will get into difficulty.