July 2019: monthly update

In this monthly update I’ll show you the returns and results of my crowdfunding and crowdlending investments.

Portfolio overview July 2019

Last month the interest payments I received totalled € 813.91 and my average rate of return over all platforms has now been stable for three months at 11.9%. The table below shows the details for each platform.

The XIRR column contains the annualized rate of return since my first deposit into that platform. I have an overview page for each platform, you can click on the magnifier glass to visit that page.

Interest income per month

Activities

To show you how little effort is involved when investion via crowdfunding and crowdlending I have added an overview of the manual actions in the last month:

I did check the platforms every now and then, but this was purely for fun. It wasn’t necessary to get these interest payments and return rates.

Platform updates

 Bondora

According to Bondora the current minimum return rate is 9.56% when you invest through one of the other portfilio options besides the Go&Grow option. This is not that much higher than the 6.75% of the Go&Grow, so the Go&Grow is still the best (and only) recommended option. It allows you to withdraw all your funds at any time, all other options will lock in your money for a long time (average investment term is 49 months).

The majority of loans was issued in Estonia, where Bondora is based (57%). Finland takes second place and accounts for a third of the loans (32%), and 10% is issued in Spain. The remainder is issued in Slovakia, but this amounts to less than 0.5%. The total amount of issued loans is 242 miljoen euros, of which 31% has been repaid.

86.5% of the active loans is current on loan repayments (143 million euro). 12,8% is behind schedule (21 million euro), and 1,2 million euros has been written off.

My investments at Bondora returned € 35.70 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

When you register through this link you’ll receive a 5 euro bonus. Just give their Go & Grow option a try for a few months, and don’t try the other advanced options.

 Bulkestate

This month I added Bulkestate to my portfolio. It is a real estate platform, where you can invest in real estate projects with interest rates ranging from 14-20%.

The platform was founded in december 2016 and it has now over 3,300 investors. The minimum investment is 50 euro, and there is even an extra bonus when you invest large sums (1% when investing 10,000 euro or more, and 2% bonus when investing 25,000 euro and up). There aren’t always projects to available, but projects are added regularly and Bulkestate has an auto-invest function.

I deposited 2,000 euro and invested half of that in this project:

This is one of the few projects that has monthly interest payments, most of the projects pay all interest in a single payment at the end of the investment term. This results in irregular payments and a skewed picture of the historical return rates. If a project has an investment term of a year, then month after month the historical return rate seems to drop as there are no returns. And then suddenly after a year a huge interest payment causes a large spike and then the return rate is accurate again (for a short period in time).

My plan is to avoid large investments into projects that only pay the interest at the end of the investment term. Instead I will make small investments each month. This will still take a year before the first interest payment, but after the first year this will result in (small) interest payments on a monthly basis. I hope this will result in a regular income, without the spikes and lows in my historical return rate overviews.

All projects have the real estate as collateral, so I think Bulkestate is a safer addition to my portfolio where I can get high returns.

 Crowdestate

New projects are added to Crowdestate too, last month there were 8 projects added. The interest rates vary between 11% and 15%, and the investment term ranges from 6-24 months. Crowdestate is a real estate platform too, and the loans are secured by collateral mortgages on the real estate.

Crowdestate is experimenting with a new concept: the interest auction. Normally there is a pre-booking system, where you pre-book your investment in multiples of 100 euro and the fixed interest rate for the project. If the amount of prebookings exceeds the project value then pre-bookings are honored pro rata. For example, if the total amount of pre-bookings is double the project value then only half of your prebooking is accepted and the remainder is returned in your account.

The interest auction works differently. In the prebooking period you make a bid and choose the interest rate yourself (it cannot exceed the project interest rate). At the end of the pre-booking period the bids with the lowest interest rates are honored first, next the bids with the lowest rates after that, and so on until the project is full.

You can also choose to let an autobidder invest for you. In that case you set the minimal interest rate, and the autobidder starts by bidding the maximum interest rate for you. Whenever another investor bids with a lower interest rate, the rate for your bid will be automatically lowered in steps of 0.1% until the auction period ends or your minimum interest rate has been reached.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 32.93 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.1%.

 Crowdestor

Crowdestor offers both business loans as well as real estate projects. These have the real estate as collateral too. This month 5 new projects were added, with interest rates of 14-20.7% and investment terms ranging between 6-24 months.

This month Crowdestor added a new industry to invest in: forestry. 52% of Latvia is covered in forests, and 11 million cubic meters of timber is harvested each year. Despite that, the amount of forestland is actually increasing.

The first project has an investment term of 9 months, with an annual interest rate of 14%. The collateral is 81 ha of forestland.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 30.33 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 Envestio

Last month I contacted Envestio to get a few question answered. They told me at the P2P conference conferentie that they intended to publish new projects in a week or two, but almost a month passed without a new project. After a few days I received extensive answers to my questions. The partnership agreement with the company that would help to valuate and bring in new projects is expected to be finalized at the end of July. Furthermore, they have pre-approved projects lined up with a total value of about 10 million euros.

I also received an email in which they told me they would publish the new project later that day, with an interest rate of 18% and an investment term of 12 months. An hour later that new project popped up on the site: “Financing the construction of Briana 4 residential”. 15 minutes after that I received the standard email they send to announce the availability of a new project. End of June I already transferred 2500 euro to Crowdestor, there was no shortage of high interest projects there, but now I could invest the remaining 729 euro at Envestio.

One of my concerns was the available time to invest in a new project. I wasn’t the only investor that was waiting for the opportunity to invest the acculumated free funds, so a new project could be fully financed in just minutes.. It turned out the project was still open at the end of the day, hours later, so all investers got a chance to invest. Also, part 2 of the project became available just 4 days later:

Envestio told me these two projects lowered the “cash drag” (funds that cannot be invested) of all investors on the platform combined to less than 800,000 euros. I assume this is also caused by investors transferring free funds to other platforms, just like me. Hopefully this means there will be plenty of time to invest in the next projects that will be published.

At the same time Envestio emailed that they were doing the final simulation runs for the auto-invest feature. 10 days later, on July 26, the feature was publicly announced and was available on the site:

As you can see I already created a new auto-invest rule, and you have to option to create several rules. This allows you to have different investment settings per project type, for shortterm or longterm projects, etc. Per rule you can set the minimum and maximum interest rates, investment terms, and amount to invest. You can also limit the total amount the rule is allowed to invest:

The minimum that can be invested automatially is 100 euro, and on August 4 I will have received enough interest to reach that minimum. Hopefully there will be a new project very soon, so I can see the auto-invest in action.

My investments at Envestio returned € 180.64 last month, and my average return rate is now 18.8%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 5 euro bonus with your first deposit, plus a bonus of 0.5% over all your investments in the first 270 days.

 EstateGuru

I enabled the auto-invest at EstateGuru a while ago, and I noticed I received two e-mails at the same time. One with the notification that the auto-invest invested in a project, and another e-mail that said the same project was fully financed:

This might be a sign of an increased popularity of the platform, so this is something to keep an eye on.

To celebrate EstateGuru’s official listing as a crowdfunding operator in Lithuania, they are having a special promotion for all Lithuanian loans on the platform until 31 August. Investments can be spread across multiple loans and the minimum investment amount is 50 €. You will receive a 0,5% cashback bonus for all participating loans that get funded before 31 August and have this cashback sign:

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 17.71 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.0%.

 Fast Invest

Fast Invest is one of the larger platforms, with over 33 thousand investors. The platform has issued loans with a total value of over 26 million euro, and interest payments to investors total 800,000 euro.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 120.52 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.7%.

 Funding Circle

I invest via the Dutch branch of Funding Circle, in small businesses in The Netherlands.

According to a report 83% of small businesses in The Netherlands think bank issued loans are not important. Also, 63% of businesses that applied for a loan at Funding Circle did not apply for a bankloan first.

My investments at Funding Circle returned € 42.80 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.5%.

 Grupeer

More is known now regarding the improvements Grupeer want to make to the platform, and when we can expect them. At the end of the third quarter this year, Grupeer will publish the financial statements of Grupeer and loan originators. Before the end of this year investment statistics, general overview, and account statements will be added.

First quarter next year an overview of scheduled payments will be added, as well as the long awaited secondary market.

Last month Grupeer terminated the partnership with the originator Kviku, as their loans were in very low demand. All investers in these loans received their investment plus the accrued interest.

My investments at Grupeer returned € 87.75 last month, and my average return rate is now 14.8%.

 Iuvo

I noticed I had a cash drag of several hundred euros at Iuvo. This should have been invested by the auto-invest, but when I looked at the available loans there were only 8 that matched my auto-invest settings (13-20% and current). Auto-invest always invests a maximum of 100 euro in a single loan, which already happened for these 8 loans. I added a second auto-invest portfolio, with identical settings:

When I activated this the available funds were immediately invested. So the maximum investment is calculated for each individual auto-invest portfolio, so with two auto-invest portfolios the maximum amount that is automatically invested in a single loan is now 200 euro. The result is less diversification over different loans, but the loans have buyback guarantee and 200 euro is only a very small portion of my portfolio at Iuvo.

Hopefully more loans will become available with interest rate of 13% and up. If that does not happen I will have to lower the minimum interest rate for the auto-invests, or add a third auto-invest portfolio. When I looked there were only 6 loans with a 12% rate, most loans have an interest rate of 8%. If it all drops down to that, my overall return rate at Iuvo will plummet. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

My investments at Iuvo returned € 98.52 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.0%.

 Kuetzal

I first invested in Kuetzal back in May, and in those few months my return rate has increased to 16.3%. This puts the platform in second place, which was to be expected with projects that have interest rates from 19-20.5%. Not all projects have buyback guarantee though, so you have to pay attention. It is better to pick a project with a slightly lower interest rate and buyback guarantee. After all, it is more important to protect your investments than to try to squeeze out that extra percent of interest. It usually doesn’t differ tht much: there is currently a project with 19% interest plus buyback guarantee.

My investments at Kuetzal returned € 38.15 last month, and my average return rate is now 16.3%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 0,5% cashback bonus over all your investments in the first 180 days.

 Lender & Spender

Lender & Spender is a Dutch-only platform where your money is automatically invested in hundreds of consumer loans. The platform grows quite fast:

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 12.15 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.9%.

 Mintos

Originator Mikra Kapital has added their loans from Moldova to Mintos. Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, but the loans have received a A- credit rating. This is the second highest rating, and these low risk loans come with the standard buyback guarantee. You need to activate these in your auto-invest by yourself, as new additions to Mintos are not automatically activated in the auto-invest portfolios.

Mintos adjusted the rating of 8 loan originators this month, and this time they are all upgraded: Agrocredit (B+ to A-), Dinero (C+ to B-), Cashwagon (C+ to B-), Credilikeme (C to C+), Credius (B to B+), ID Finance Spain (B- to B), Metrokredit (C+ to B-), and Varks (B to B+).

This type of changes are not automatically reflected in the auto-invest portfolios, so it is wise to check these and update them if needed.

My investments at Mintos returned € 53.61 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.3%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 1% cashback bonus over all your investments in the first 90 days.

 TFG Crowd

I received my first interest payment from TFG Crowd this month. It was just 7.08 euro, but it is a start. And considering I only invested 1,000 euros in the platform it is not that bad.. I invested in two projects with interest rates of 17%, so my historical return rate should climb fast next month(s).

My only concern is that this is a relative new platform, and the transparancy is not quite there where it should be yet. This makes it hard to assess the robustness of the platform, and the risks of investing here. I’ll try to get more information about this platform. In the meantime I can only advise this platform for a small portion of your investment portfolio.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 7.08 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.5%.

 Twino

The loan performance statistics of Twino show that 75% of the outstanding principal is current, and 18,6% is delayed:

The other Twino statistics show reassuring rising lines, but it is hard to view the actual trends when they show cumulative values. So I decided to translate the statistics in graphs that show the actual values per month. I will show them side by side, so you can see the difference that makes. First is the total volume investments, and now it seems to be slowly descending:

The second chart shows the interest paid to the investors, which is now fluctuating more but there is no real downward trend.

When you look at the number of investors, it shows a downward trend. I don’t know if less investors are registering, or investors are leaving the platform.

I am not worried yet, but I will keep a close eye on this platform in the next months. To be continued..

My investments at Twino returned € 56.02 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.8%.

Blog traffic

The number of visitors this month has gone up slightly to 1,617 and 7,734 pages were viewed in total. Thanks everyone!

And finally…

That was it for this monthly update. You can subscribe via the contact page and you’ll receive an email the moment a new update is published. Or just visit again next month, that’s up to you.

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Below you can also find the link to my previous posts, where you can find my tips and results of the previous months. You can find them here too.