August has been an excellent month, although the monthly return rate has fallen to 7.3% (versus 7.9% in July). P2B Crowdlending platforms have improved their return rate compared to July, up 9.5%, while Real Estate Crowdfunding platforms and P2P Crowdlending platforms and they have fallen to 12.2% and 3.3%, respectively.

Really disappointing results in real estate crowdfunding in August. The 3.3% obtained is the lowest monthly return rate in over one year (May 2018). This is mainly due to the cooling housing market in Spain over the last few months, where I am too exposed through Housers, Inveslar, Privalore and Bricks & People. It’s been several months that I’ve been reducing my positions, but it takes time.

The reduction of my P2P income is largely due to the drop of the ruble against the Euro in early August (I am exposed in Mintos and Twino). Even so, over time, my rubles investments remain very profitable.

Table of Contents

Portfolio Summary

The main news of the month are:

• I have reached 33 platforms, after starting to invest in another five in late August, two real estate: Bricktarter and EVOEstate; and three P2B: Monethera, Trine and Wisefund.
• And next month TFGCrowdAnother P2B-type platform like Kuetzal, Envestio or Crowdestor, with really attractive return rates and a history of 18 funded projects.
• I continue with my divestment on platforms that I’m not completely convinced about (Fellow Finance and Finbee) and I have reduced positions in platforms that are overrepresented in my portfolio (Mintos) and Housers (although I have not withdrawn the funds from the platform yet). I increased my positions only on my most recent platforms (Kuetzal, Crowdestor and five new) and in real estate outside Spain: Bulkestate, CrowdEstate and Estateguru
• The best platforms in terms of XIRR are 1) real estate: Bricks & People (now operating through the SociosInversores.com platform) and Estateguru; 2) P2B: Envestio; and 3) P2P: Finbee, Grupeer and Fast Invest.
• The best monthly returns were 1) real estate: Bulkestate and CrowdEstate; 2) P2B: Envestio; and 3) P2P: Robocash, Viventor and Finbee.
• For Mintos, I present the combined returns (all currencies, taking into account the exchange rate), as well as the return rate separately for each currency (without applying the exchange rate).
• To compare all platforms, check my Comparator.
• The gray shading indicates inflated returns due to specific promotions, while the yellow shading shows that the returns will surely end up being lower because there are delayed or unpaid projects without a final decision.

All interests are calculated before deducting taxes.

Delays and defaults

• The situation in Housers still has not improve because of the slow down of the Spanish property market. As for the other Spanish real estate platforms, the case of Privalore is even worse, with 4 of my 6 active investments being delayed. Inveslar accumulates 4 delays of a few months; no default yet.
• Flender is stabilized in five defaulted projects and Brickowner remains with two delayed projects.
• One more default in Estateguru. The situation does not worry me yet, because Estateguru is proving very effective when it comes to recover them: already four recovered …
• Linked Finance remains with 6 unpaid, while the number of delays increased to 7.
• The delays and defaults of Finbee are within the expected, being a platform without Buyback. The case of Fellow Finance is much more worrying, given that the defaults are not compensated so far with the profitability of the active loans. Luckily I do not have too much invested.
• CrowdEstate does not allow to easily check for delays. There is at least one, but it is impossible to know how many exactly unless one checks the projects one by one.
• To compare all platforms, check my Comparator.

*Variation in the number of active projects from last month; I only include platforms without Buyback; Green if the parameters (delays and defaults) have improved compared to last month and red if they have worsened.

** NEO Finance does not allow to check for historic defaults, i.e. once sold (with penalty).

Real Estate Crowdfunding:

Brickowner

In Brickowner, since all the investments are long-term and paid in full at the end of the project, my profitability remains at zero (since I started operating with the platform in May 2018). In April, I experienced the first two delays.

After rapid growth in 2018, Brickowner has opened an investment round in 2019 in Seedrs.

You can read the profile card of Brickowner here. When registering, you will receive £ 50 within 30 days after a project is financed if you use thisLINK

Brickstarter

One of my August additions , Brickstarter is a Spanish platform that invests especially in Andalusia (south of Spain). Unlike other real estate platforms, they specialize in managing tourist apartments, analyzing data from sites like Airbnb, Booking, HomeAway, Idealista to know the profitability of a property. The minimum investment is 50 EUR, and you receive interests (5%) while the project is being financed, which it seems to be no more than a couple of weeks. Brickstarter reforms and decorates the apartment, which once completed, is rented to tourists. After a variable time, the revalued apartment is sold and capital gains are shared among all investors, in addition to the regular gains already obtained from renting. The XIRR obtained are reportedly around 10%. During August there was no project available to invest, but there were two announced for September. Brickstarter has been operating already for a while and number of projects have already been sold/exited.

Investors who use the code BRICKS during registration with this LINK, will get 15 EUR extra for investing and 0.5% cashback during 90 days. The code is valid until further notice.

BulkEstate

In Bulkestate, being all investments long-term and paying in full at the end of the project, I saw no returns until December, when my first two projects ended. The return rates are excellent (always above 13%) and historically there are 0% defaults, so my strategy is to continue investing in each new project.

You can read the technical sheet of Bulkestate here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

CrowdEstate

The XIRR offered by CrowdEstate, taking into account just the return rates of already reimbursed projects (30) is 13.9%. I’m still really satisfied, especially with the timeliness of payments and absence of defaults so far.

In August, one of the two delayed projects, Starelement OÜ, which had been due since June 30, concluded notarized transactions, allowing them to pay off the investments, penalties, interest, and principal included. Now there is only one delayed project left among my investments.

My strategy is to continue investing in each new project, except those funded in several stages ( “Multiple rounds investing”), as I believe it goes against the principle of diversification. Basically it would mean investing several times on the same project.

You can read the technical sheet of CrowdEstate here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Estateguru

In EstateGuru, the net annual return offered by the platform, taking into account only the returns of already reimbursed projects, amounts to an impressive 13.4%. The delays of EstateGuru, remain in their usual figures, about 5% of the loans (7.8%), and the defaults jumped from 5 to 7 (1.1%).

My strategy is still to invest in each new project, except in those funded through several tiers (in which I only I invest in one, usually the first).

Estateguru announced in August that they will be offering a 0,5% cashback on all investments starting from €1000, and a 1% cashback on all investments starting from €10 000 made into loans displaying the Cashback sign from August 28 till September 30.

Estateguru published in August its 2018 annual report. To date, the volume of loans issued has been doubling every year, and EstateGuru has established itself in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Spain and Portugal, with more than 850 loans issued amounting to €133 million. EstateGuru has over 27 000 investors of varying profiles hailing from 106 countries. You can access the report here. here.

In May, EstateGuru announced that investors have provided more than €113 million to Baltic businesses. Over 23,000 investors have joined the EstateGuru platform. More than €6.8 million interest earned by investors. Also, the historical LTV for all funded loans remains under 58%, showing the conservative nature of EstateGuru’s management.

You can read the technical sheet of EstateGuru here. When registering, you’ll receive 1% cashback of the amount invested over the first 30 days if you use this LINK (only during October, afterwards it will go back to 0.5%).

EVOEstate

EVOEstate is my second new real estate platform this month (together with Brickstarter). EVOEstate allows you to invest in loans and capital projects from real estate companies across Europe, including many of those I already use: Brickstarter, Reinvest24, Inveslar, Bulkestate and Crowdestor. I plan to use it only to diversify on other platforms not already in my portfolio without having to open a new account: Nordstreet, Bergfurst, Urbanitae, Norbalta or Re-Lender. Of all the opportunities, a small section includes those in which EVOEstate has invested its own funds (“skin in the game”), which are the most recommended. So far, the platform has offered projects in 10 countries (including in the United States), from 6 to 60 months and with annual returns between 6 and 16%. In this first month, I have invested in 3 projects.

Register with thisLINK and you will receive EUR 15 gift after making the first investment.

Housers

The situation continues to be worrying in HousersMost of the fixed-rate projects with defaults have reached agreements to new payment schedules that include late payment interest. Savings or investment projects that used to be paid even several months ahead of schedule are now systematically delayed. There are 12 such delays now. As a result, the monthly benefits for July have fallen to 2.2%, the lowest since July 2017.

Consequently, I’ve decided to change my strategy: reduce my investments to 100 euros per project, sell in the secondary market and gradually reduce my positions, which are largely overrepresented (35% of all my crowd investments).

In August, for the first time since I use Housers, a project (Catarroja) did not get fully funded, so Housers had to return the invested funds to investors. Another bad sign perhaps?

In August, Housers launched a new direct communication channel (CCD), which is basically the secondary market where one can buy and sell shares. It’s a bit cumbersome having to register manually for each project one by one (122 in my case!). The good news is that now it’s allowed to sell at discount or premium. More information (in Spanish) here.

EARLYIELD is a new functionality launched in July that will be applied to all on-sale projects. It means that from the moment you make your investment in any of the opportunities, you will get an annual return of 10% until the moment the project is financed.

Another new July feature is the Flex Contracts, which only apply to development loan opportunities, specifically for the investment as well as promotion modality. The Flex Contract has a duration of 12 months that can be expanded up to 6 months more. These contracts will be available in some projects that will be published on the platform, starting from the 1st of July 2019. The Flex type of contract has been created in order to give more flexibility to those projects that can risk being subjected to delays, mostly due to reasons that don’t directly depend from the project developer, e.g. delays in the licenses’ assignation from the City Councils or to delays in the construction for reasons that are not directly connected to the developer. Therefore, the Flex contracts give more flexibility to project developers, enabling them to ask for an additional period of 6 months. However, the contract’s extension has a benefit for the investor as well: when a project is prolonged, the investors will benefit from an increase in their yields. In addition, the funds will be paid 6 months later compared to when they had to be paid originally.

In May, Housers turned four years old. Housers finances projects in three countries (Spain, Italy and Portugal), has more than 106,000 registered users on the platform from 155 different countries. Investors have invested in the platform more than 83 million euros and the promoters have returned more than 28 million Euro between yields and returns of capital.

You can read the technical sheet for Housers here. Register with thisLINK and you will receive 25 EUR Gift after making an initial investment of at least 50 EUR.

Inveslar

In Inveslar, most projects are quite long term, so the benefits are mainly from the rentals. In August, a new project finalized and I reached the maximum historical monthly returns.

Inveslar, like Housers, seems to have definitely shifted in terms of the type of projects offered to fixed rate mortgage loans, as opposed to the savings or investment projects they used to offer.

Inveslar announced in August that they are in the final phase to be able to publish projects with regulatory coverage within the framework of participatory financing platforms. As of August 30, all the projects we publish will already be regulated by the law that protects the PFP.

You can read the Inveslar technical sheet here. Register with thisLINK and you will receive 25 EUR Gift after making an initial investment of at least 1000 EUR.

Privalore

Privalore offers only investment opportunities (rehabilitation), which translates into very unreliable returns. Since March 2018, the platform offers only opportunities in Madrid, whereas previously it focused exclusively on Barcelona. The biggest downside is that four of my five active investments are quite late (several for over one year), so I have decided not to invest in any new project until the delayed ones catch up. In any case, the platform hasn’t listed any new projects for months now (since February!).

Reinvest24

Reinvest24 is a real estate crowdfunding platform, whose projects generate benefits for both rent and capital gains when selling (none yet).

It is too early to judge. Generally I satisfied, although I’ve only managed to invest in two projects, which are financed very slowly (2-3 months). On a positive note, some of the more recent projects generate profits from the time of investment before the project is fully funded. Nor is there a large supply of new projects, although the platform has already financed 9 projects in its short history with estimated return rates that range between 11 and 15%. Another downside is the 2% commission charged by investing, meaning I currently have negative returns (-4.6%).

In August, Reinvest25 has launched a promotion Cashback:

• 00.5% Cashback from total of 100 – 999 EUR gross investments
• 1% Cashback from total of 1000 – 9999 EUR gross investments
• 1.5% Cashback from total of 10000 – 19999 EUR gross investments
• 2% Cashback from total of 20000 – 29999 EUR gross investments
• 2.5% Cashback from total of 30000 – 39999 EUR gross investments
• 3% Cashback from total of 40000 – … EUR gross investments

When registering, if you use this LINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Crowdlending P2B:

Crowdestor

Crowdestor is a platform similar to Envestio and Kuetzal in terms of performance and profitability. After 5 months, I have invested in 22 projects, with returns between 12.8 and 20.7% and periods of 2 to 24 months. Projects are financed quite quickly, between a few hours and a week. I’m very satisfied. In fact, I regret not having started investing before. The only downside is perhaps that its growing popularity results in projects being financed in a few hours sometimes, which together with the lack of Autoinvest makes it easy to miss them if you are not very attentive.

When registering, if you use this LINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Envestio

Envestio is still the platform with the best return rate (17.9%!). To take into account that many of the new opportunities are in fact new tiers of financing of the same project (up to thirteen tiers sometimes), so investing in them, does not increase the diversification.

After over a month without new projects, the situation has finally changed in July and August, with 2-3 new projects every month. With the returns offered and Buyback (!), I intend to increase my position in the coming months (hoping that the offer will increase).

Another good news of July is the activation of the AutoInvest option (from 100 EUR), long announced. A very positive change. The success of Envestio causes new opportunities to be sold in a matter of minutes, so you had to be very alert to invest.

You can read the Envestio technical sheet here. Register with thisLINK and you will receive a bonus of EUR 5 24 hours after the first deposit of minimum 100 EUR, plus an additional bonus of 2.5% of the amount invested during the first 270 days.

Flender

The number of defaults of Flender has remained at five for several months. Although it is still high, it has dropped to 6.0%, compared to almost 10% in April. The defaults are not yet recorded as losses. We will still have to wait (probably) several months before knowing how they resolve. Flender has started legal activities to recover them (estimated at a 35% probability). I understand that it falls within the norm, but it’s the highest default rate of all platforms I invest in, except for P2P platforms without Buyback.

As a positive note, the XIRR of Flender, with 15.2%, remains the second highest of all P2B platforms, only behind Envestio. This should compensate for potential losses.

You can read the Flender technical sheet here. Register with thisLINK and you will receive 0.5% of the amount invested during the first 30 days.

Kuetzal

Kuetzal is a platform similar to Envestio and Crowdestor in terms of performance and profitability. After 5 months, I have invested in 11 projects, with returns between 14 and 21% and periods of 12 to 36 months (especially 12 and 24). Only one new project in August. Some take a little longer to get fully funded, but for now the payments are timely and in August I have already reached a monthly return of 12.6%. It is still too early to evaluate the platform, but for now I am very satisfied.

When registering, if you use this LINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Monethera

Monethera is an August addition to my portfolio. It is a platform similar to Envestio, Kuetzal and Crowdestor in terms of performance and profitability. Monethera started in 2017 as a private investment fund. It was launched in 2019 as an online crowd-investing platform. Their projects focus in four core áreas: Real Estate, Business Growing, Organic Farming & Green Energy, Logistics and Technologies. Up to now, they’ve already offered 6 projects with very attractive returns (18-21%) and 3-12 months long. The platform will buy back your projects with a 5% penalty. I have managed to invest in all but the first (so, 5 total).

Register with thisLINK and you will receive a bonus of EUR 5 plus 0.5% of the amount invested during the first 90 days.

Linked Finance

The Irish platform is the most active by far of all P2B platforms I use. At least it was until August. With the holidays, the number of new projects has been reduced dramatically (only seven), and for the first time, I am accumulating cash drag. Even so, yields continue stabilized at about 8%, and the platform reassured me that after the summer, the level of activity will resume. Linked Finance It is one of my favorite platforms. Be remain unpaid 6 (of 542 opportunities) and 8 projects with delays. Me intend to continue investing in all new projects.

Linked Fiannce announced in August that they will be making some changes to their regular reporting in order to provide lenders with more useful insights. The new statistics section will include a much wider range of metrics and insights with a particular focus on portfolio performance and returns. They will move away from a standard quarterly report to more dynamic data that lenders can access in real-time whenever they want.

Also in August, Linked Finance was shortlisted in the “Best Peer to Peer Lender” category in the Investment & Wealth Management Awards (a UK award).

In June, Linked Finance announced that they had reached €100 Million in total lending. The first half of 2019 was a record period for the platform. Here are some of the key market place metrics: total lending 23.7 Million EUR; 325 loans; Average loan: 72,834 EUR; Average return rate: 9.6%.

October

The only problem of October to date are the five projects in the process of judicial recovery (3.2% of the total), on top of four delayed projects that seem to be following the same path. However, the negative returns of the last two months have finally turn positive in August: 9.2%, the highest since I use October, although the XIRR only slightly positive (0.45%). On a positive note, to clarify that, unlike other platforms, October provisions 100% of the amount (since the judicial recovery processes take a long time and the result is unknown). Provisions are potential losses and over time some or all of the amount due may be recovered. The rest of the platforms do not consider such losses until the judicial recovery process ends. Hopefully there will be no more setbacks and my XIRR will gradually recover.

I have decided to stop making new contributions until I have a clearer picture how the defaults evolve. Until returns do not become positive. I will just reinvest the principal returned and interest. I have also reduced each investment to the minimum allowed (20 Euro).

The Euro amount of each project has increased, so now, despite the absence of AutoInvest, there is more time to invest.

You can read the technical sheet of October here. Register with thisLINK and you will receive € 20 to lend on projects when investing at least 500 EUR.

Trine

Trine is one of the latest additions to my portfolio (August). It’s probably one of the most original and exciting platform to invest in. It allows people to invest in solar energy in growing markets, i.e. the developing world. This allows you to earn a profit while making social and environmental impact. Trine partners with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Swedish International Cooperation Agency (SIDA), which, to my eyes, adds much credibility to their proposal. Indeed, Trine, through its partnership with UNDP contribute towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7- affordable and clean energy, and improve the quality of life in rural communities. Read more here.

Basically, you choose a loan to invest in, or set up Monthly Investments. Each loan is a bit different in terms of impact, location, size and risk. You decide how much to invest from €25 minimum. When the loan is fully funded, your money is transfered to the borrower, i.e. solar partners, who sell and distribute solar products to their customers. If the solar partner succeeds to repay the loan you’ll get back your investment with interest. You can expect repayments approximately every three months. A big plus is that some loans are partly covered by Investment Protection in case it fails (provided by SIDA). So far, Trine has funded projects in 14 countries.

So far, I’ve invested in Guatemala, Kenya and Nigeria, with interests up to 8% (or even higher when you invest over 1000 EUR). While the interests are not that high compare to other platforms, at least for me, that’s compensated by far by the good feeling of investing your money in a good cause, while reducing my carbon footprint. In my case, my footprint will be 20.3 Tons of CO2 once the projects get operative!

If interested, you will get 10 EUR back when registering through my LINK.

Wisefund

Wisefund is a new addition of August. It is a platform similar to Envestio, Kuetzal and Crowdestor in terms of performance and profitability. It started operating in 2019 in Estonia. So far, they have already commercialized 5 projects with very attractive returns (17.3-19.7%), 4-10 months in duration … and Buyback! The platform will repurchase its projects with a penalty. I have managed to invest in three of them.

Register with this LINK and you will receive 0.5% of the amount invested during the first 180 days.

P2P Crowdlending:

Dofinance

In Dofinanceafter 6-7 months with loans at 9% maximum, loans at 11% are back since April. VIP Dofinance investors can get up to 12% (1% extra) during the first 90 days (10% VIP status) using my promotional LINK .

Dofinance may not be the platform with the highest profitability, but it represents the maximum of simplicity to operate. Once the objective profitability and the term have been chosen, there is nothing left to do other than wait for the interests to arrive. In addition, monthly returns have followed an upward trend since January, and in July they have exceeded 10% for first time over a year.

In June, Dofinance announced a new product: Auto invest invoice factoring. .

Dofinance in numbers: In June, there were 3,900 registered clients, 40% of German investors, followed by Spain (22%), Italy (11%) and the Netherlands (10%). The average investment amount was 2,695 euros and an average period of 6.8 months investment, with a 9% automatic investment as the most popular investment program.

You can read Dofinance’s technical sheet here. Register with this LINK and you will receive an extra 1% return during the first 90 days (VIP status).

Fast Invest

Fast Invest is one of my favorite platforms. Although, since February, unfortunately, we have stopped seeing loans at 15% as we used to, return rates keep an astounding regularity at around 14%.F

As of July 22, the average interest rate stands at 12.4%, 33.00 new users were registered and the investment volume grew to € 26 million.

You can read Fast Invest’s technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Fellow Finance

Very disappointing results for the moment. Interest rates are really attractive (up to 55%!), but without Buyback, so I’ve been a bit more cautious investing than with other platforms. As of today, the many defaults do not compensate for the higher returns offered, leaving me at the end with negative returns, at least for now. As to my strategyas they offer no Buyback, I have invested only in loans with interest rates above 48% and always the minimal amount, which in the case of Fellow Finance is quite high (25 EUR). I must say that there are other less risky loans, which surely would have resulted in a better performance than my (so far) failed investment strategy. It is a complex platform, and customer service is not particularly good, so I have still many doubts about how it works.

Since May, I no longer invest in new loans with the idea of decreasing my position and eventually leave Fellow Finance. In July I started withdrawing funds.

You can read Fellow Finance’s technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Finbee

Although the yields obtained with FinBee are so far excellent (a XIRR of 16.6% selecting only loans above 18%), being a platform without Buyback, I am still awaiting how the platform will evolve medium-long term once the (many) defaults stabilize. Overdue and unpaid loans account for 10.4% and 16.9% of my portfolio, respectively.

The recovery rates of loans in arrears are 56.15% of as of 2016 and 40.21% as of 2017. The collection process has not ended, so these indicators should continue to improve in the future. However, for investments after March 2019, FinBee announced that it will compensate 30% of the loans in arrears. Doing a quick calculation, this implies that profitability, once the defaults begin to realize, will be reduced considerably below what’s currently offered by platforms with Buyback (7-8%?), So since June, I have stopped reinvesting profits and started to withdraw them from the platform.

In August, Finbee has finally updated its platform. I have to say that it is now much easier to understand, using the most common terms and parameters in the sector. Before it was really confusing.

You can read Finbee’s technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Grupeer

GrupeerOne of my favorite platforms, with consistent results and profitability always between 13 and 15%, although loans’ average interest has decreased and we no longer see loans at 14 or 15%.

In August, return rates have fallen to 10.8%. I don’t know why. Hopefully they will return back to normal in the coming months.

In July, new features in the Autoinvest are available, with the launch of the deal match calculator. When you adjust all criteria to suit your preferences you will see how many investment deals will match the set parameters. This tool allows to see how restrictive or inclusive your set up Auto-invest strategy really is.

You can read Grupeer’s technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Mintos

When presenting my results, Mintos is more complicated since I invest in five different currencies. The graph shows in red the combined results of the platform (converting each currency to EUR according to the exchange rate of each month). This means that monthly profitability is very susceptible to variations in exchange rates.

Since October I invest manually, both in the primary and secondary markets.

The maximum interest rate offered by loans in EUR have fallen dramatically during August. Compared to the 15-16% offered since April by about ten originators, now the best returns are 12.5%. Also the interests offered by loans in Tenges (KAZ) and rubles (RUB) have fallen slightly to 17%. They are usually always available both in the primary and secondary markets.

The best IRR (at the moment) are my investments in Kazakh tenges, Georgian laris and Russian rubles (16.9% -17.9%).

Loans in pounds sterling (GBP) are in short supply lately in both primary and secondary markets, but 2-3 times a month a few new ones appear, bringing the problem of Cash Drag to a minimum.

New originators in August:

• In August, Polish money-loan product provider, Everest Finanse S.A. joined Mintos with personal loans. Everest Finanse has been operating since 2000 and issues its loans under the Bocian Pożyczki brand. Since its inception, the loan originator has issued more than 1.5 million loans worth around PLN 3.5 billion (around EUR 811.7 million). Other characteristics: 1) Mintos Rating of A-; Poland-issued personal loans listed in EUR; The average loan is EUR 550; Net annual returns of up to 7%; Buyback guarantee; Skin in the game of 5%; Payment of interest on delayed payments.
• SOS CREDIT consumer loans. Established in 2015, SOS CREDIT is lead by an international team with experience across the finance, payments and marketing industries. Main characteristics: Consumer loans issued from Ukraine; Average loan of EUR 93, with an average term of 22 days; You can expect up to 13% offered rate per annum; Buyback guarantee; Skin in the game of 15%.

In August, Mintos updated the information on 54 loan originators. The rest of loan originators are currently in the process of providing the requested information.

In July, IuteCredit Europe announced the issuance of a four-year senior secured corporate bond (ISIN: XS2033386603) worth EUR 40 million, with an annual interest rate of 13%. The settlement of the bond is expected to be on 7 August 2019. It means that IuteCredit will use part of the bond’s proceeds to refinance its loan book on the marketplace. From August 15, 2019, IuteCredit will repurchase part of its loans from Mintos investors using their call option as stipulated in the assignment agreement. Currently, total loans outstanding on Mintos by IuteCredit amount to around EUR 24 million. IuteCredit expects to continue funding part of their loan book through Mintos in the future, both from existing countries and new countries it has entered or is about to enter.

In July, one of the fastest growing loan originators in Ukraine, Alexcredit (B-), has joined the Mintos marketplace. What Alexcredit offers on Mintos: Ukraine-issued loans listed in EUR; Average net annual return of up to 13%; Short-term loans from EUR 50 to EUR 325 with a maturity of 25 days; Buyback guarantee for all loans delinquent for 60 days or more; Interest income on delayed payments; and Grace period of 0 days.

In June, Mintos launched a new product, Invest & Access, which makes investing and withdrawing your money quick and easy, but at lower rates that what you could get with AutoInvest or manual investment. For the moment, I prefer to invest manually. The first overview of the Invest & Access performance has been made available in August. You can read it here.

Mintos has exceeded 2,920 million Euro in investments (July 2019) to become the largest market for investment in loans in Europe (according to P2P-Banking), they have reached 164.995 investors ( July 2018), have raised 5 million euros in a round of financing, have incorporated 31 new originators from 13 new countries, and investors have received 53 million in interest (July 2018).

You can read Mintos’ technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK you will receive 0.75% of the amount invested during the first three months.

NEO Finance

I’m not very satisfied with NEO Finance as you can imagine from the graph. After some really positive starts, the high number of defaults has ended in negative returns in the last five months, although the XIRR remains still marginally positive (0.2%).

My investment strategy has been so far to invest only in loans from the primary market (except 4-5 in the secondary market) above 17% (and up to 27%) and without a provision fund. There are too many delayed loans (36%) that end unpaid (after 90 days) with only a small part being recovered (usually around 30-50% depending on the interest rate of the loan). The last weeks of June I stopped reinvesting the benefits. Starting in July, I’ve decided to try a new strategy using the provision fund (which is basically like paying for Buyback). The provision fund must be paid in advance when making the investment, which means starting with losses. It will take several months before I can evaluate the results of my new strategy, but for the moment it’s still not recovering. In August, my loans with a provision fund increased to 13%. When registering with thisLINK, you’ll receive 25 EUR when opening an account.

Peerberry

Without offering spectacular returns, Peerberry compensates it with an amazing regularity (return rates always between 11 and 12%), minimum follow-up needed and zero Cash DragI intend to keep my position as long as everything stays like this.

In August, Peerberry announced the launch of their loyalty program for investors:

• Silver: From 10 000 Eur of active investment portfolio (gets +0,5% for future investments)
• Gold: From 25 000 Eur of active investment portfolio (gets +0,75% for future investments)
• Platinum: From 40 000 Eur of active investment portfolio(gets +1% for future investments)

Also in August, Peerberry announced a new loan originator: Lithome, one of the largest and most reliable real estate companies in Lithuania.

Peerberry Peerberry in figures: In August, Peerberry reached a loan volume of 13.3 million and exceeded 13,100 investors from 64 countries that can invest in loans loans from 18 originators in 8 countries. Most loans last less than 40 days.

You can read Peerberry’s technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Robocash

Return rates have increased since April with the payment of interest on several of the longer-term loans (180-365 days), which are paid in full at the end, so the current return rate does not reflect the real profitability of the platform ( that should be 11.9% in my case).

Robocash continues with its excellent regularity after overcoming the problems of Cash Drag last summer. Since November, all loans are at 12%, compared with 14% previously. At the moment, my strategy is to maintain my current position.

In August, Robocash announced that two loan originators from Kazakhstan – Zaimer.kz and TezCredit – have stopped their activities on Robo.cash and will not be accepting new investments from now on. Yet, consumer loans from Kazakhstan will still be available on the platform but will be provided by Z-Finance only. Zaimer.kz was one of the first lenders of Robocash Group (since the very launch of the platform in February 2017). TezCredit integrated in July 2018, becaming the first loan originator offering to invest in instalment loans on the platform. Focused on ensuring business efficiency, Robocash Group has found TezCredit not to meet these expectations and decided to close the project in order to strengthen the development of short-term consumer loans in Kazakhstan. As for Zaimer.kz, despite leaving the platform, it will continue its activities within Robocash Group as a company providing customer acquisition and scoring services for Z-Finance. All the current loans issued by Zaimer.kz and TezCredit will be maintained until they are closed. All the invested funds including the earned interest will be paid back to investors in due course set by the existing assignment agreements.

Since July, Robocash offers to invest in the Vietnamese company of Robocash Group in EUR loans with an annual interest rate of 12%. Vietnam has become the second country from Southeast Asia on the P2P platform. The P2P platform Robo.cash, RC Riga and Robocash Vietnam Co. Ltd. all belong to the financial holding Robocash Group, which operates in Europe and Asia. Operation within the same group allows to provide users of the platform with a complete buyback guarantee on all investments.

In April, Robocash announced a Loyalty Programme for investors. Investors with ID>1,000 will receive increased interest for 3 months (from 1 September to 30 November 2019) given that they keep from 1,000 EUR on the platform from June 1, 2019 to August 31, 2019. The bonus will be accrued according to the investor’s category, which corresponds to the investor’s minimum balance as of June 1, 2019.

The first 1,000 investors who joined the platform (not my case) will receive a guaranteed bonus of 0.3% from 1 September 2019 to 31 January 2020 regardless of their balance.

You can read Robocash’ technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Swaper

Swaper seems to have definitely solved the problems of Cash Drag, although the returns, inexplicably remain below the results of last year.

New investors who sign up by using my Affiliate LINK will get a Swaper Loyalty Bonus (+2%) on all investments made during the first three months. This means that instead of a 12%, investors will earn 14%! The bonus will be activated after the first successful payment. If the account value drops under 5k after three months, the bonus will be revoked.

In July, Swaper announced its move to Estonia.

You can read Swaper’s technical sheet here.

Twino

I began to invest somewhat reluctantly in November 2018, in view of the negative comments about Cash Drag and low returns. However, after eight months, Twino has become one of my most profitable platforms (13.0%), thanks in part to the positive fluctuations of my investments in currencies other than Euro. If the situation continues like this, I do not rule out increasing my positions.

Twino announced the next version of of the Currency Exposure (CE) functionality, which lets you invest in loans that are pegged to the local currency of the specific loan originator. Starting from June, part of Russian loans will be listed with the Currency Exposure functionality and return of 14% p.a., while another part will be listed without it and return of 10% p.a. Meaning that it will not be possible to invest both with and without the CE functionality in one specific loan anymore. The loans that come with CE will be marked with a special icon near the interest rate.

Main news of July:

• A new CEO, in the person of former CFO Anastasija Oleinika, has been appointed to lead TWINO Group. She will be replacing the long-term CEO and founder Armands Broks, who will remain in an active managing shareholder role with a focus on development of new business.
• Launch of an in-profile messenger, which can be accessed through your investor profile by clicking on the envelope icon at the upper right corner. It is combined with the notification functionality that can also be accessed through here.

Plans for August:

• The release of TWINO Group’s audited consolidated financial statement for year 2018 is just around the corner.
  • Net profit: €9.0 million;
  • Equity: €15.0 million;
  • Cash and cash equivalents: €8.1 million;
  • Strong liquidity ratio of 1.25;
  • Operational cash-flow positive;
• New user agreement, where our Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) best practices are communicated even more clearly.
• TWINO Blog is about to be launched.

End of May marked 4 years of Twino Investment platform – more than EUR 500 million worth of loans funded through the platform. Twino now is the fourth P2P lending platform in Continental Europe that has ever reached such a funding amount. Moreover, 2018 resulted as Twino’s most successful year to date with company’s net profit being EUR 3.7 million. In 2019, Twino brought Business loans (term of 3-36 months, interest rate of 8% and Payment Guarantee) and Invoice financing to the platform, allowing to further diversify.

Latest figures of Twino: 1) Loans funded in August: € 16,4029,049; 2) Average interest of loans in August: 10.41%; 3) Loans funded at all times: € 548,762,000; 4) XIRR to date: 10.65%; and 5) Number of investors (on 1 September): 18,473.

Viainvest

Until now it was a platform of moderate returns with excellent regularity, without Cash Drag that required a minimum follow-up. During the last few months, on top of this, there’s been a gradual improvement in the return rates, reaching values ​​of over 13% since January (except for a brief drop in March, when I increased my positions in 9%).

Unlike other platforms, Viainvest withhold taxes. I present tax-free results to facilitate comparison.

In August, Vianvet published an investor survey which is now closed and the brief summary of key findings of the survey is now available here.

You can read the Viainvest technical sheet here. When registering, if you use thisLINK I’ll receive a small commission.

Viventor

The situation is similar to that of Viainvest. For the last two months, I only invest in loans at 14% (and some at 15-16%), so I hope that the monthly returns will continue to increase in the coming months.

The problems with Aforti (Factor and Finance) loans announced in July seem to have been solved in August, and after a couple of weeks, the two companies are catching up with the payments. Thanks god, because they accounted for 17% of my investments in Viventor.

In August, Forza, from Bosnia has joined offering short term consumer loans. Founded in 2016, Forza has focused on steady, but stable growth. Since its inception, the company has issued and serviced more than 50.000 loans. Forza provides loans ranging from 50€ to 200 € with the term from 7 to 30 day. Up to date, Forza has disbursed more than 8 million euros to their clients.

And in July, the number of originators continues to increase until reaching 19 originators in 10 countries with the addition of Monify from Latvia. Since 2017, they have lent more than 12 million EUR loans and has helped 600+ customers to solve their working capital problems. Loans will be 5,000-100,000 EUR in size, 1 month-1 year duration, 12-16% annual return and a 60 day Buyback guarantee.

You can read Viventor’s technical sheet here. When registering, enter the code TN4687, invest at least € 500 for 30 days, and we will both receive 5 EUR

Other Fintech tools:

WhiskyInvestDirectis a very innovative platform that allows you to invest in Scotch whiskey in the process of maturation. I started investing in March and I made two contributions with which I invested in thirteen different whiskeys. I hope to have time in the next months to write a technical sheet with more information about the platform.

For the moment I am quite satisfied, with a XIRR of 6.4%, although with large fluctuations in profitability.

Register with thisLINK and you will receive 1 liter of pure alcohol (1 LPA) and 2 pounds (GBP).

Evolution of my positions

As for the evolution of my positions since January 2018 depending on the type of investment, they’ve remained more or less constant until August, when I sold my most important investment fund for the purchase of an apartment.