September 2019: portfolio update

This month my income from P2P lending is below my first target again. Last month was the first time I reached that goal, but that was caused by a large interest payment for a project: the interest for the first 6 months was paid after that period. But to be honest, I thought this month’s income would be lower.. It is not that far from my first target so I hope to reach it again soon.

Last month I visited several platforms in Tallinn and my first post, about my visit to EstateGuru, can be found here. Read bout my visit to Bondora here. I plan to add the other posts about the visits somewhere in the next few weeks. It takes a bit longer than I expected, since it was a very busy period for me, plus I am waiting for the answers to some additional questions that I sent to the platforms.

Portfolio overview September 2019

Last month the interest payments I received totalled € 928.01 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 12.3%. 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. Click on a column header to sort the table by that column, twice to reverse the sort order. 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.

Equity crowdfunding

Sometimes I write about my crowdfunding investments at Seedrs. Here you can invest in start-ups and you get shares instead of interest income. This is my portfolio overview:

These investments are for the long term, so it could takes years before they become successful. Or they can end up being worthless. That’s why I have invested in a few start-ups, hopefully one will bloom and compensate for any losses for the others.

I have just invested in WeGaw, an Swiss start-up that automates analysis of satellite data to monitor snowfall, avalanche risks, and other outdoor data.

I am interested to know whether information regarding equity crowdfunding interests you, so please let me know if you would like more info about this in my updates!

When you want to try Seedrs for yourself, you can register via this link and you’ll receive £25 free investment credit after investing £150 or more within 30 days of signing up to Seedrs (around 175 euros).

Platform updates

 Bondora

I visited the office of Bondora in Tallinn, you can read about it here.

Bondora posted new performance statistics on their blog. Their Go&Grow option is a simple as a savings account (but one with 6.75% interest) and you can withdraw all your funds at any time, but we do need the trust in the platform before we deposit our money there.. As you can see there are big differences between the countries, but overall everything is above the set targets:

My investments at Bondora returned € 28.97 last month, and my average return rate is steady at 6.8%. I withdrew money to diversify into other platforms, which caused the drop(s) in the chart.

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

Bulkestate is becoming more and more popular, with the real estate as collateral and the surprisingly high interest rates compared to other real estate platforms. There is an auto-invest function, and Bulkestate also sends an email before new projects are added:

What did become clear is that the auto-invest is not optimal. There are two moments for an auto-invest to operate: at the publishing date and at the closing date. In the first case the auto-invest is activated for all investors at the moment a new project is published. So auto-invest has a higher priority over manual investments. In the second case the auto-invest is activated if the project is not fully funded by manual investments at the closing date. At Bulkestate I have activated the auto-invest, and as you can see the mentioned project matches all auto-invest settings:

I checked the website one hour after the project was published, and saw it was already fully financed. It is starting to look like the Envestio problems in the spring. And unfortunately my auto-invest did not invest anything in the project. So either the project was not divided equally over the auto-invests of all investors, or the auto-invest is only activated when there is not enough invested manually. I guess I should set an alarm when there is a new project announced.. This obviously defeats the purpose of an auto-invest.

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 8.90 last month, and my average return rate is now 1.9%.

 Crowdestate

Crowdestate is another real estate platform, and quite a few projects were published here this month. These are quite interesting, not the highest percentages (11-16%) but with secured debts (first rank mortgages) on the properties. I have invested in 13 projects now, and since these interest rates are above my current average return rate I expect my return rate to slowly climb.

There were two projects that encountered payment issues; because of late payments I received an additional 3.48 euro in penalties. Luckily I did not invest that much in these projects (170 euro and 93 euro) so it is not a very big loss when things go south there.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 14.86 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.0%.

 Crowdestor

On September 6th, the project Mafia Stars opened on Crowdestor. A lot of people asked me questions about this project, especially because of the interest rate: “18% + 14%”:

The 14% is not guaranteed, I think it is bait to attract more investors. The 18% interest is fixed (not bad right?) and the company will use the funds to promote a new mobile game and attract paying users. Depending on the success of that campaign investors will a part of the extra revenue.

According to the project this can result in an additional 2% up to a maximum of 70%, but it is expected to be in the 14-22% range. The Buyback Fund is applicable to this project and on September 7th another project ended and returned the principal, so I decided to invest it in this new project. I’m very curious how this project will be handled: the term for the project is one year, but the extra success fee is calculated over a 2 year period.. Now that I have invested I can follow it better, so I’ll keep you posted. To be continued!

There is no lack of projects at Crowdestor at the moment, as there are still 3 other projects available: 2 with an interest rate of 14% (and 12 months term) and one of 16.5% (18 months and a LTV of 32%).

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 74.73 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.4%.

 Envestio

Envestio is running really well now. The auto-invest works perfectly and new projects are added regularly. This is still one of my favorite platforms. Last month there were 7 projects published:

Occasionally it can happen that there are no projects available, but in those cases we do not have to wait a long time anymore. And we can now invest in those high-interest projects without having to wait ourselves, it is just a matter of depositing the funds and active the auto-invest.

My investments at Envestio returned € 197.78 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

Last month I visited the office of EstateGuru in Tallinn, you can read about it here.

EstateGuru has a special promotion the entire month October. Invest via this link and get a bonus of 1% of all investments made in the first 30 days after registration. So even when you register on October 30th you will get the 1% bonus for all investments up until November 30th. Plus, you will receive an additional bonus of 0.5% over all investments made in the next 2 months.

This platform does not have the highest interest rates, but the added security of secured debts and the properties as the collateral just feels safe. And there are two active projects with an interest rate of 11%, which is really not bad when you think about it:

EstateGuru is planning to expand to Finland this year, and they have now hired someone to lead their Finnish operations. Hopefully we will see the resulting Finnish projects soon, having more choice and diversity is always better. Especially when they’re projects with real estate a the collateral.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 67.14 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.8%.

 Fast Invest

Fast Invest is not transparant about the loan originators, it only shows (detailed) information about the consumers the loans are issued to. This makes it difficult to spread investments over different originators to keep a good diversified portfolio. Thay have indicated this will be introduced after the contracts wit hthe loan originators have been renegotiated, but it is unclear when we can expect this.

I must say I am happy so far with the performance of this platofrm though. My return rate is very stable at 13.7%, so it is in the top 5 of my best performing platforms.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 123.29 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.7%.

 Funding Circle

I have invested in 7 projects now at Funding Circle NL. I started investing in this platform a little over a year ago and it is going smoothly so far: no problems, no delayed payments. Of course this is not a guarantee for the future, but it feels good. It does happen from time to time that there are no projects to invest in, but usually you don’t have to wait long.

My investments at Funding Circle returned € 40.00 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.6%.

 Grupeer

Currently all projects at Grupeer have buyback guarantee. This month they sent an email that they have updated the Grupeer User Agreement, and one of the changes is about the Buyback Guarantee. With the changes it will be possible for loan originators to add loans without buyback guarantee.

This caused quite a stirr, and Grupeer quickly sent a followup email to clarify things. It allows loan originators to offer loans with higher interest rates but without buyback guarantee. Currently none are offered, and existing loans will not be changed. Investors will never invest in these unsecured loans without consent, it requires a manual change to the auto-invest settings. The option is already added, but cannot be changed yet:

Grupeer has added a new originator: Cubefunder. They offer loans from the United Kingdom but they are offered in euros. So no need to exchange currencies. The loans are primarily bridge loans to small and middle sized businesses, averaging 20,000 euro.

My investments at Grupeer returned € 87.42 last month, and my average return rate is now 14.7%.

 Iuvo

Iuvo added Adwisers to the list of loan originators. Loans from Romenia are offered with interest rates up to 13%. According to Iuvo this originator has very low default rates (1%), so they are assigned to the two safest risc classes (A and B). And they come with buyback guarantee.

My investments at Iuvo returned € 91.21 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.6%.

 Kuetzal

My return rate at Kuetzal keeps climbing, the platform now takes second place in my portfolio. And a new project was announced with an interest rate of 20% and buyback guarantee. A nice opportunity, so I deposited an extra 500 euro to invest in this project. The high interest rates are probably offered to attract more investors to this new platform and to make the platform grow. I think the rates will be lower in the future, so it was nice to to able to invest in such a profitable project:

My investments at Kuetzal returned € 46.60 last month, and my average return rate is now 18.3%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 0,5% cashback bonus over all your investments in the first 180 days. During registration you can enter the promo code FINANCIELEVRIJHEID to get an additional € 15 bonus.

 Lender & Spender

My investments at the Dutch platform Lender & Spender returned € 9.31 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.0%.

 Mintos

A newletter from Mintos highlighted some statistics over last month, which show this is the largest P2P lending platform in Europe:

Mintos added a new originator too: SOS Kredit from the Ukraine. Average size and term of the loans is 93 euro and 22 days, and interest rates up to 13%. Already present originator Mikro Capital has added loans from Moldavia to their portfolio.

Having attracted extra capital, originator IuvoCredit bought back loans totalling 10 million euros. This happens from time to time, but these large amounts are really noticable. Investors get their funds back early, so no worries there. But these loans (with interest rates of 13-16%) are then replaced by loans with lower interest rates (10-11%). This is of course good for the continuity of the originators, but bad news for the investors..

I noticed this last week when I saw that not all available funds were invested by my auto-invest. Over 500 euro was resting idly in my account. I could update my auto-invest and lower my minimum interest rate (currently 13%), but I have decided to see it it is interesting to invest in other currencies. I’ll investigate it and write about it next month.

My investments at Mintos returned € 49.47 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.6%.

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

 Robocash

Robocash has a nice option in their overview: you can decide to view the amounts with or without rounding. All platforms use a large number of decimals in their calculations, but only show the first two in the overviews. This is good news when investing smaller sums, because very small interest payments can lead to a much lower return rate when the values are rounded down to 2 decimals. The overview has a setting to show the values with or without rounding:

My investments at Robocash returned € 7.52 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.5%.

 TFG Crowd

An important change this month at TFG Crowd: from now on interest is being calculated from the moment you invest in a project. Up until now interest calculation started when the project was fully funded.

There are now 3 projects available with interest rates of 17%, including two real estate projects that have the added security of real estate collateral.

TFG Crowd is a very young platform that still has a lot to prove. You can see frequent updates to the website, which to be honest are usually things that can be considered quite basic. For instance, the investments overview only showed the projects you invested in, but not how much you actually invested. Now thay have updated this and a nice overview is shown, and by clicking on the ‘Profit’ value the payment schedule is shown:

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 15.53 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.6%.

 Twino

todo

My investments at Twino returned € 57.02 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.7%.

 Viainvest

This is my second month at Viainvest, and my return rate has risen from 3.9% to 7.3%. It always takes a few months for a new platform to reach the levels that are normal for the platform.

The loan originators at Viainvest are a part of the same company group. So just like a few other platforms Viainvest has everything under it’s own control: from originating the loans to the development of the platform. The Swedish branch has been accredited with the highest level of credit worthinesss, an indication that investing here is relatively safe.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 8.26 last month, and my average return rate is now 7.3%.

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.