Viainvest

Viainvest Review

I started in March 2018. Interest rates offered are moderate, but steady. The best is that Viainvest does not require to spend much time (I visit the platform only once per month), because it keeps all the money reinvested without any incidents. Unlike other platforms, Viainvest withholds taxes.

• Platform Type: Crowdlending individuals (P2P), which come from the parent company VIA SMS Group with branches in 4 countries.
• Start: 2016.
• Modalities: Five originators offering loans between individuals (from a few hundred Euro to 3000 euros). There are three types of loans.
  • The most common are the short-term loans, which are issued to borrowers for a short period of time, namely up to 30 days. If the borrower might fail to repay his/her loan on time, the automatic Buyback Guarantee comes into force after 30 days of delay, repaying the whole investment amount + earned interest for the whole period (that also includes the delay time). The borrower can also choose to extend his loan, in which case loan status changes to “Extended”. During the extended period the borrower can still make partial payments, and if that’s the case, investors having invested in this particular loan will also receive partial interest payments before the loan closing date. If you feel like the loan extension lasts longer than expected, you can manually withdraw funds from that particular loan by using manual Buyback as soon as your investment period hits 120 days since the investing date. An “Initialize Buyback” button will appear on the particular loan profile and you are able to exit this investment by receiving full invested principal and earned interest repayment.
  • The Installment loans have a term that varies from 3 to 12 months. The borrower makes a set of monthly payments until the loan amount is repaid. Investors get paid a percentage of their principal investment and earned interest with each of these payments. credit line. Both automatic and manual Buyback Guarantees also apply to this loan type and work exactly the same way as they do with short-term loans.
  • The Credit line loans have been the latest addition to Viainvest loan portfolio. You can think of credit line as a combination of short-term and installment loan. The initial loan amount is issued to a borrower for initial 30-day period, and during this period the borrower has to make a choice – either to repay the full loan amount within 30 days or make monthly payments until the full loan amount is repaid (as it is with installment loans). This is why there is no actual loan term set for these loans, as it can be changed. You will always be able to monitor the remaining loan term for credit lines – it will indicate the number of remaining days until the next scheduled payment. However, the trick with this loan type is that the borrower can borrow an additional amount to be added his original loan at any time, given that he keeps making minimal monthly payments.
• Geographic focus: Almost all loans originate in Poland (80%), Latvia (20%), and Czech Republic (almost none). Spain and Sweden only in theory, i.e. I do not have any Spanish or Swedish loans in my portfolio.
• Currencies: EUR.
• Return rates: Since June 2019, all loans have the same interest rate of 11%.
• Investment flow / Cash Drag: There are always loans available (several thousand).
• Minimum investment (per loan): From 10 EUR.
• Payment modality: Interests paid every month.
• Duration of loans: All short (7-30 days), most of them 30 days long. I have two loans at 6 and 12 months that are the exception.
• Defaults: None, because the platform offers only secured loans (with Buyback). The platform does not allow to easily check the percentage of overdue loans (cannot be downloaded), but the level of historical defaults is 6.5%. In any case, as there Buyback, this does not affect the performance obtained by the investor/user.
• Buyback: Yes, all come with Buyback. The buyback is activated within 30 days of delay for short loans.
• AutoInvest: Yes, there is an AutoInvest that allows you to define your criteria based on the term, interest rate, vendor loan amount to invest, whether you want to reinvest profits. Also a manual option, but it is quite laborious to invest in each loan, so I’ve only used a few times.
• Secondary market: It does not exist nor is it necessary because of the short duration of almost all the loans offered. In any case, there is an option (Buyback button) for the platform to buy you (the few) long-term loans, although as there are hardly any loans over 30 days long, I do not think it will be used much. It can be useful in case you want to close your account quickly.
• Interface / Tools: Perhaps a little limited. You can consult and download your income and transactions, invest in automatic or manual format, consult and filter your investments (but not to download them), and see the generated benefits and average interest rate. There is the option of receiving weekly or daily reports via email. No graphs of any kind.
• Taxes: It is the exception, because Viainvest does withhold taxes, unless you submit a tax certificate. As of 1 December 2018, Viainvest announced that such withholding is no longer automatically apply to income from investments in loans originated in Poland by VIA SMS PL Sp. For investments in loans originated in Spain or the Czech Republic, withholdings will continue being applied.
• Customer Support: I have contacted them several times (the questions are sent through the platform and they answer by email) and they’ve always replied within 24 hours.
• Languages: English, German, French, Latvian
• Welcome promotion: None.