October 2019: vacation update

In this monthly update I’ll show you the returns and results of my crowdfunding and crowdlending investments. It is a bit shorter than usual, because I’m currently on vacation. Diving under water has higher priority right now than diving in the world of P2P 🙂

A second P2P platform in trouble, after Lendy in May. Now UK based platform Funding Secure has gone into administration. An increasing number of borrowers struggle to pay back the loans, and on top of that the platform is involved in a fraud lawsuit with an art dealer (who apparently owes the platform 3 million GBP). Over 3,500 investors are waiting to hear how much of the 80 million GBP in total can be recovered.

Portfolio overview October 2019

Last month the interest payments I received totalled € 899.83 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 12.2%. 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

Next month I expect another peak again. Projects that pay interest quarterly are clearly visible in the chart:

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.

This month I have added a new platform, and moved money from Envestio and Fast Invest to other platforms for better distribution. Normally there is a lot less activity:

I also checked 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

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

You can now see the individual transactions on the Bondora ‘Statements’ page. This allows you to see what the daily amount of interest is that you receive:

My investments at Bondora returned € 31.07 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

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 4.45 last month, and my average return rate is now 2.1%.

 Crowdestate

Crowdestate notified the investors in loans of Baltic Forest OÜ that this company is lacking funds to repay the loans and interest. Secondary market transactions are suspended until a reorganization process has been approved by the court. The company insists that the plan will not reduce the claims of the investors, and that interest payments will be commenced after a half year period (after June 2010). Then, six months later, the interest payments will be doubled and it is expected that all principal and interest is fully repaid in the summer of 2021.

Fortunately I invested just 100 euro in Baltic Forest. Even though all loans will be fully repaid including interest, there is no 100% certainty. Of course there is always the collateral that can be sold to cover the loans in case the plan fails, but nobody wants to take that route.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 40.04 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.9%.

 Crowdestor

Crowdestor published a project with a whopping 26% interest. A scary percentage, as a higher interest rate is an indication of higher risks. Even though the LTV is quite low (45%) and the project is covered by the Buyback Guarantee Fund. After all, that Fund is still growing and the current size (143,000 euro) is not enough to cover the entire project.

The biggest reason I did not want to invest in this project is that it is a ‘fur production company’, and I am against using real fur. But I was really interested in a project with an interest rate that high, nd you cannot follow a project when you’re not one of the investors. So I decided to compromize and only invest the lowest possible amount of 50 euro. I invested the rest in the project ‘Renewable energy’, with an interest rate of 14%. A lot less profitable, but a better feeling.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 78.46 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.2%.

 Envestio

Project availability really fluctuates at Envestio. Envestio was back on track in September with a lot of projects and the addition of the auto-invest, but then it was silent for a month. Half my money was uninvested at that time, so I decided to withdraw some to invest in other platforms.

At the end of October 5 large projects were published in 4 days; 500,000 to 700,000 euro each. These projects are available long enough for all investors to step in, especially when you have enabled the auto-invest. My auto-invest invested all my free funds (accumulated to 3,500 euro) into two projects, both with an interest rate of 20%.

My investments at Envestio returned € 197.33 last month, and my average return rate is now 18.9%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 5 euro bonus with your first deposit (minimum 100 euro), plus a bonus of 0.5% over all your investments in the first 270 days.

 EstateGuru

EstateGuru has added a new feature: the diversification model. This tool helps you diversify your investments by scoring your investments in 8 different factors: location, loan type, property type, loan period, property value, loan amount, interest and schedule type. Each factor is further divided into several components, some of which may counter each other. For example, let’s say you have an investment in an oil company and in a transport company. Rising oil prices have a positive effect on the shares of the oil company but it may have a negative on the transport company. The diversification model takes this all into account.

You can find it under “Portfolio overview”, not under “Account balance overview” as was stated in the announcement email. For my portfolio it looks like this:

EstateGuru also added the long awaited secondary market this month. I already heard this was eminent during my visit to the EstateGuru office, you can read about that here. The average loan term at this platform is 10.4 months, which is not that long. But still, it is good to be able to sell your investments when the need arises.

When you look at the portfolio overview, a “Sell” button has been added:

There are some conditions that apply. The secondary market is not intended for speculations, so there is a 2% fee that is paid by the seller. And a single loan or claim cannot be sold more than once a month. You also need to accept a disclaimer before you can use the secondary market.After that you can buy the investment shares from other investors:

As with all secondary markets, you have to be careful which investments you buy. When the status is late or in default, you might want to reconsider. And always have a look at the projects, the project updates, and the activity on the secondary market. It may be a good opportunity or all investors mey be trying to leave a sinking ship. EstateGuru has a good reputation, and in case of problems EstateGuru has always been able to retrieve and return the investors funds. But that does not mean that the returns are always favorable.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 13.46 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.5%.

 Fast Invest

even though I’m still really satisfied with Fast Invest, I decided to withdraw some funds and move this to other platforms. Not a lot, just 1.500 euro so far, and this was deposited into my own bank account within 2 business days. Fast Invest is one of three platforms where I have invested more than 10k, a lot more than other platforms. So besides the lack of transparancy, diversification is also a major reason.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 127.31 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.8%.

 Flender

I started investing via Flender this month, a platform based in Ireland. At the other side of Europe from most other platforms, this also adds a bit of geographical diversity to my portfolio.

Flender does not offer buyback guarantee, so I unchecked the highest risk classes. Each risk class has a specific interest rate:

Here is an overview of the loans that were published lately, as you can see there is a large variety:

One of the reasons I started investing here is that they have a really nice bonus: register via this link and you’ll get a 5% cashback bonus over all your investments in the first 30 days.That’s why I invested more than I normally do in a new platform! I have deposited and invested € 2,500 and immediately received the bonus: € 127.50 in total.

 Funding Circle NL

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 38.60 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.6%.

 Grupeer

My investments at Grupeer returned € 87.98 last month, and my average return rate is now 14.6%.

 Iuvo

My investments at Iuvo returned € 88.48 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.4%.

 Kuetzal

This month I received an email from Kuetzal that their website was attacked, and the attack was successfully deflected:

For some accounts the password may have been deleted, but they most likely deleted the passwords of all accounts. That’s the safest thing to do: nobody can can use a password that may have been compromised, and you need access to the e-mailaccount to set a new password.

I visited the website and could not log in using my password, so I used the ‘reset password’ feature to change it. A new password is sent via email, but this is not a temporary password that you are required to change. So to increase safety I changed it again to a more secure password. To prevent further attacks you are now required to do a small calculation:

I use LastPass to create unique and strong passwords. This is a password manager, a free tool that remembers your passwords for you and also enters these for you on the websites. This allows you to use unique and difficult to guess passwords (“sJ0#4JP5^0T@*Z3Q” is safer than “qwerty123”). Never use the same password for more than one website where your money is stored or managed! That way any leaked password cannot be used to break into your other accounts. LastPass is free, but when you register via this link you get LastPass Premium for free for a month. Of course you can use another password manager too.

My investments at Kuetzal returned € 46.60 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.9%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 0,5% cashback bonus over all your Kuetzal 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 Lender & Spender returned € 9.18 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.0%.

 Mintos

Another loan originator in trouble after Aforti on the Mintos platform: Rapido Finance stopped sending payments to Mintos. I checked, but luckily my auto-invest did not invest in loans from Rapido Finance. Maybe they were loans with higher risks, and did not pass my auto-invest filters. It is not known yet what the cause of the problems is.

This month I converted 500 euro into Russian rubles (RUB). This gives you a separate account, with separate auto-invest settings. You pay a small fee for the conversion:

I then created a separate auto-invest for the RUB loans, and after less than a month the return rate increased to a nice 16%, compared to the 11.3% for the EUR account:

One problem is that I do not know yet how to incorporate this RUB account into my overviews. I cannot just add the rubles to the euros, and when I convert rubles to euros I get unwanted market fluctuations. The only time when the currency conversion rates are really important is when I decide to convert the rubles back to euros, and I can pick a favourable time fot that. I’ll think about it some more, and I hope to have this solved next month.

My investments at Mintos returned € 52.47 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.8%.

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

 Reinvest24

My return rate at Reinvest24 is now negative, but this is because of the 2% costs per investment. These 2% is used to cover property acquisition expenses. Besides that, Reinvest24 charges 10% from rental revenue generated by the properties to cover various property management related expenses. Clearly this platform is different from the others. I’ll explain more in the next updates.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € -7.84 last month, and my average return rate is now -21.0%.

 Robocash

My investments at Robocash returned € 10.37 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 TFG Crowd

TFG Crowd now has several open projects with interest rates of 17-18%. And several others that are coming soon. Until recently it was a guess when the projects were opened for investors, but now a countdown timer has been added for projects that open soon:

I am happy there are more and more real estate projects here, as the real estate collateral makes it feel a lot safer. And the interest rates are still a lot higher compared to other real estate platforms.

The real estate projects describe why this is still a good deal for the borrower. Arranging a mortgange is a lengthy process, so property sellers offer discounts for ‘cash’ buyers. The TFG Crowd projects are also arranged fast and thus count as a cash purchase. So the property can be bought a lot quicker, and it can be rented out a lot sooner making revenue right away. After the purchase the company can refinance the loan by taking out a mortgage, which takes more time but there the company can also get a discount because it already has 2 mortgage free properties.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 21.67 last month, and my average return rate is now 14.1%.

 Twino

October was a good month for Twino, the company reached EUR 1 billion loans issued since the company was founded in 2008. Half that was issued in just the last 3 years, and 560 million via the platform that was opened in 2015. Twino is also very profitable: the net profit for 2018 was 9 million euro. I guess that is a clear sign that this is a relatively safe place and platform for investing.

My investments at Twino returned € 49.85 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.8%.

 Viainvest

No news about Viainvest this month, but no news is good news. My return rate is slowly climbing, last month it was 7.3%. Eventually I expect it to reach 10-11%.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 10.35 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.1%.

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.

When you found this update interesting, consider hitting the Like button. Feel free to share it with your friends using the buttons below.

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