Der Jahreswechsel ist traditionell geprägt von guten Vorsätzen und neuen Zielen für die kommenden 12.Monate. Was im privaten gilt, hat natürlich auch im Business längst seine Etablierung gefunden. Unternehmen formulieren neue Umsatzziele und Gewinnerwartungen, definieren KPI’s, wollen wachsen und sich kontinuierlich weiterentwickeln. 

Aus diesem Grund habe ich das neue Jahr als Anlass genommen, um auch bei den P2P-Plattformen einmal nachzufragen, was diese sich für 2019 vorgenommen haben. Dafür habe ich insgesamt zwanzig P2P-Anbieter angeschrieben, wovon sich alle auch in der Plattform-Übersicht wiederfinden. Da ich die Anfrage erst am 10. Januar versendet habe, gab es natürlich ein bisschen Zeitdruck, sodass ein paar Unternehmen aufgrund der Kurzfristigkeit absagen mussten (iuvo Group, PeerBerry). Andere wiederum haben sich gar nicht erst zurückgemeldet.

Am Ende sind es 12. P2P-Anbieter geworden, die den Lesern des re:think P2P-Kredite Blogs Einblicke in deren Ziele für das Jahr 2019 gewähren wollen. 

Die Vorgaben für den Artikel waren sehr einfach gehalten. Der Text sollte einen Umfang von 300 bis max. 1.000 Wörter haben und auf Englisch verfasst werden. Inhaltlich gab es keine Vorgaben, wobei ich vorgeschlagen habe, dass man den Artikel in zwei Teile untergliedern kann. Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit einem kurzen Rückblick auf die Highlights von 2018, der zweite Teil gibt einen Ausblick auf die Ziele und Erwartungen für 2019.

Was die Plattformen daraus gemacht haben, kannst Du in den einzelnen Abschnitten nachlesen. Über das Inhaltsverzeichnis kannst Du einzelne Unternehmen direkt anklicken, um sofort zu den für Dich relevanten Beiträgen zu gelangen.

Die Reihenfolge basiert auf den Artikeln, die mir als erstes zugesandt worden sind.

EstateGuru

2018 at EstateGuru

Last year was excellent for EstateGuru, as we improved on many aspects of our service and made significant progress. With your participation and support, EstateGuru funded 356 property loans worth €52,5 million in 2018 alone, an increase of more than 225% compared to 2017.

We returned nearly €19 million worth of issued loans, paid out more than €3 million in interest and bonuses, and generated more than €73 000 in referral bonuses for our loyal investors and influencers. The return from repaid loans was 12.02% in 2018.

2018 also saw our investor base grow to more than 18 000 registered investors hailing from 109 countries while we also managed to attract the first institutional investor to our platform. The wider and stronger the investor base the easier it is to attract quality investment opportunities to the platform.

In November, we launched our new website by redesigning the user experience and creating a new logo. We aim to continue improving the new website to develop it into the leading property investment marketplace in the world.

There has also been plenty of movement behind the scenes. Our team has grown to 27 valuable team members, all eager to make EstateGuru’s product and service the best in the property lending industry.

2018 was also a busy year telling the EstateGuru story at the leading Fintech and Proptech events all around Europe and the 2019 calendar is already filling up, starting with the Paris Fintech Forum in the last week of January.

In December, we collected 5195€ to donate to charitable causes in Estonia – a record for us.

Looking ahead to 2019

We expect 2019 to be another exciting year for EstateGuru. We are optimistic that we will continue to find attractive investment opportunities in the Baltics and also in some Western European countries where we have spent the last two years preparing to launch.

In 2019 we stay focused on growth. In addition to looking to grow our loan offering and investor base, we are looking to build new partnerships with other Fintechs, Proptechs and innovation oriented traditional financial institutions. We also keep our eyes open at exciting investment and consolidation opportunities that would help to bring EstateGuru forward in more effective way.

We closely monitor the economic and property market situation at both the micro and macro level and are confident that EstateGuru’s funding solutions are needed in every market environment. We have strengthened our risk and loan servicing teams who are ready to cope with any challenges that changes in the economic environment could bring. As strongly as we believe in flexibility and diversification, we also believe in being prepared for every situation.

As we enter 2019, we will do our best to bring you positive surprises with EstateGuru, by improving on key features of the platform and introducing innovative solutions. 

Crowdestor

Which is the greatest goal you have achieved in 2018, the one that you are most proud of?

Trust is an important base for building a successful business, for investing into something. It is all about risk. About believing into an idea of something to be created, of something to be put out in the light for the world to see. As we all know trust is earned both ways and since the beginning we have proven that investors can feel safe with us. When working with clients who have their dream, who have their vision and their concept we prove to them that Crowdestor platform is a way for them to achieve their goals. It is a very special feeling of being able to be a part of someone’s vision becoming a living reality. We have experienced that we can trust in our clients and it is a privilege that they feel the same way.

Another aspect of what we are truly proud of are the projects that we were able to offer during 2018.

It was a true privilege that in the end of 2018 we could offer such projects as INCH2 and The Catch restaurant in Berlin. Thanks to these projects few more interesting projects have contacted us and have asked about an option of a possible collaboration.

Most probably few projects will air on our platform already in the first months of 2019.

What is your main goal for 2019?

As our main goal for 2019 we have chosen to be the development of BuyBack guarantee fond. We plan to invest our own money in it. A pattern of how this fund will continue to grow and develop has already been created.

We have digged through and analyzed the BuyBack guarantees that are being offered in P2P investment platforms and some aspects are what we want to change. For example, we cannot see with what kind of resources it is possible to offer the patterns of BuyBack if the project experiences a default and how the platform can guarantee a loan which is thousand times beyond its fixed capital.

The Crowdestors developed BuyBack guarantee mechanism will be a real warranty not a guarantee whose functionality is questionable.

Which new functionalities or products can we expect in 2019?

For sure it will be an ‘Auto-Invest’ function. More diverse and more extensive reviews for the clients which they will be able to find in their accounts. Adding to that there will be more opportunities when making a deposit and payout. And finally – real, existing function of BuyBack.

Robocash

2018 was an eventful year for the P2P investment platform Robo.cash. Being a part of the financial holding Robocash Group, which also combines affiliated credit companies in Spain, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and India, the platform keeps up with the pace of the group.

Thus, last year, Robo.cash continued expanding its activities and added four new loan originators, two of which represent Russia and the Philippines. Along with it, a new product – instalment loans – was introduced on the platform. This allowed to finance over 680,000 loans totaling €58 million since the launch of Robo.cash in February, 2017. At the end of the year, the total income of investors hit €530,000.

In January 2018, in addition to the EU countries, the platform also became available for investors from Switzerland. The total number of new investors in 2018 amounted to 3,200, which is twice as much as in the previous year. Besides, the total volume of investments on the platform reached €5 million.

It is obvious that the interest in using Robo.cash is growing fast – investors see benefits in a high turnover, profitable interest rates and a complete buyback guarantee on investments provided by the platform. As for the geographical spread of investors, just as in 2017, the majority of them represented Germany (56.8%). The next top five countries included Spain (7%), Portugal (4.6%), Austria (4.1%), Italy (2.4%) and Czech Republic (2.4%).

2019 is expected to be no less productive and challenging. Robocash Group will be focused on developing the existing markets and increasing lending volumes in Russia, Spain and Kazakhstan. It is also planned to enter new markets, and in particular, to increase the share of the Asian lending companies in the group portfolio. This will allow to increase the volume of available loans on the investment platform. Therefore, it is expected that Robo.cash will reach 10,000,000 euro of attracted investments by the end of 2019.

Another goal of Robocash Group this year is to continue diversifying the product range. In 2018, it provided an opportunity to invest in instalment loans from Kazakhstan, and now it will be aimed at scaling these products up.

As shown by the results of 2018, Robo.cash is developing rapidly. Improving the performance and increasing the capacities, it will keep bringing new opportunities for investors in the coming years.

Viainvest

Without hesitation we can say that 2018 was a really great year for VIAINVEST! First of all, we’re immensely proud of reaching the milestone of 100 000 000 EUR loans funded through the platform, which clearly indicates that as a platform VIAINVEST has grown and matured significantly over the last year.

Besides, the results of our annual investor survey showed that at least 40% of the respondents have been with us for over a year, while striving to achieve financial success, and 52% of  investors are planning to significantly increase their investment amount. With regards to general platform assessment, 79% of VIAINVEST users have evaluated VIAINVESTas good or very good, giving us extra motivation.

Ever since the launch of VIAINVEST at the end of 2016, our goal has been to provide exceptional customer support. It is important for us to maintain trustful and transparent relationships with our investors, and it is encouraging to see that our investor community appreciates the work that we’re doing – 92% of the investors rate communication skills of the support service as great.

To make investing with us even more convenient, we’ve managed to arrange that VIAINVEST is no longer obliged to withhold taxes from income earned on the platform, when investing in loans originating from Poland and Latvia. We expect to achieve the same for Czech and Spanish loans in 2019. Meanwhile it’s the responsibility of investors to deal with taxation matters outside the platform.

Germany still remained our number one investor country in 2018 amounting to 39%  of all VIAINVEST investor community, followed by Spain with 12% and Latvia – with 10%. We have got 8024 investors registered on the platform in total by today, and 5128 of them joined us in 2018. 

We’ve got a number of resolutions for this year too. First, we’re planning on adding yet another loan originator, allowing our investors to diversify their portfolios even more. Probably, by the time this post is out you will be already aware of the new investment diversification opportunity. After repeated requests, we intend to provide our investors with an opportunity to manually download tax statements.  

As much as we love our website, we feel that now’s the time for a couple of improvements in terms of UX, refreshed design and enhanced investment filters, for example. Besides, we’ve got great news for our Spanish-speaking investors – looks like our website will finally speak their language!

Apart from all the technical matters concerning the best possible investment experience, we also care a great deal for having a high quality content on our blog, therefore we encourage our investor community to provide us with feedback. We would be excited to hear your ideas and suggestions about the content you would prefer to see on our blog, so feel free to reach out to us any time!

by Simona Lucatniece, VIAINVEST Platform Lead

Bondora

What happened in 2018

2018 was a huge year for Bondora. We surpassed 45,000 investors, saw our monthly originations triple and released what is now our most popular product, Go & Grow.

The response from the investor community since launching Go & Grow has been incredible. After receiving feedback from thousands of investors who wanted something simple, with fast liquidity and low risk – Go & Grow was the answer. Traditionally, a limitation in P2P lending is the liquidity. And despite not being a short-term product, Go & Grow gives investors total control of their money.

We were lucky to host many investors at our HQ in Tallinn (you’ll find this on our social pages and blog) and look forward to doing the same in 2019.

Three things to look out for in 2019

This year, it’s been 12 years since we were officially founded and 10 years since the first loan was issued. We probably can’t be considered as a start-up anymore (despite still keeping the strong culture internally), so you could call us a “scale-up” instead. Here are three things we’re looking forward to in 2019.

1. Bondora in 24 languages

Earlier this month, we converted the Bondora platform into 24 European languages. We already have investors from 85 countries around the world; however our number of European investors continues to see significant growth.

In general, most customers find it easier to use something in their native language, and it’s a much better experience for them overall. We’re excited to see where this leads – maybe another country will challenge Germany as our most popular investor base… 

2. Go & Grow app

After launching the feature request service last year, it’s quite clear our investors want an app. Despite our site being completely mobile friendly, using an app makes it just that one bit easier for investors to use. We don’t have a specific date for release yet, but I can tell you it will only be exclusively for a select number of existing Go & Grow investors to begin with. There’s limited availability, so if you want to get your name on the invite list early, send an email to investor@bondora.com with “Go & Grow app” as the subject line.

3. A quarter of €1Billion in investments

We estimate by the end of the year we will have surpassed over €250M in total investments. At the time of writing, we have €178M, and we’re originating over €7M per month, so it’s realistic – if not conservative. To achieve this, it’s crucial we continue to build trust with our investors by delivering on our promises.

What’s more, we’re consistently improving our existing products based on investor feedback. I’d personally encourage any of our investors reading this to get in touch with some feedback on how we could improve Bondora for you.

Swaper

The year 2018 has ended and Swaper has celebrated its second year of operations. Although this year has passed really fast, Swaper has got a great experience and grown thoroughly with offering loans from 5 countries on the platform, increasing numbers of loans funded, active investors as well as improved the investment experience for investors.

Last year Swaper was able to significantly grow its loans funded in the platform by EUR 34 million, reaching a total of EUR 54 million worth of loans funded through the platform since starting its operations at the end of 2016. The average interest rate for investors in 2018 was 13,1 % and active investor number increased by 1.075 to 2.045 when compared to the year before.

Swaper also took steps in developing and improving the website and Mobile App. First improvements were done to its Auto Invest feature Portfolio so investors could configure it easy and their funds would invest more efficiently and we got a new brand identity- with new logos and icons, background images and a fresh color palette.

Swaper has started its new year with nominations for two awards – the AltFi “People’s Choice Award 2019” and BankingCheck und eKomi Award 2019 as “Best Fintech”. Keeping in focus the importance of investor satisfaction, the main goal for 2019 is to significantly increase funded loans volumes. Swaper expects to fund around EUR 55-60 million through the platform with increasing numbers in all loan issuance markets.

Regarding expanding the market with new countries, it is on Swaper’s checklist, but further information could be announced in the second part of 2019. To keep up with the continuous evolution of IT and Fintech technologies, Swaper will continue to attend several conferences and share its story and experience.

To keep up with the latest news and improvements follow Swaper’s Facebook profile and blog!

Debitum Network

Why did we create Debitum Network?

The first version of Debitum Network platform launched on the 3rd of September 2018. From the inception, our mission has been to serve only short term business loans backed by collateral, to bring better value to users and ensure trust among all platform participants by means of decentralized blockchain driven platform.

Businesses around the world are always in need of funds to fuel their daily operations. In fact, according to SME Finance Forum, the most common cause for bankruptcies of companies within the first years of business is lack of access to funding. This is particularly true for small and medium-sized companies as banks are unwilling to lend to them. The gap of unfunded SMEs around the world widened from $2.6 trillion a few years ago to $5.2 trillion in 2018. We saw that as a business opportunity to get into lending business for SMEs and created an online P2P lending platform – Debitum Network.

All loans on our platform are backed by real assets: goods at a warehouse, goods to be sold, invoice to a customer, equipment, real estate, personal guarantees from business owners and other, thus adding extra safety for investors’ funds. As most of the loans are short-term, from 4 to 12 weeks, an investor is offered an excellent opportunity of a quick turnaround of funds and earn compounding interest due to a possibility to reinvest in new loans after the old ones are repaid.

What did we accomplish in 2018?

We are proud of how much we were able to achieve last year. In just six months we were able to create a live, working product. Since the 3rd of September (the day it went live publicly), we experienced exponential growth each month. The number of users grew by 129%, the number of investors by an astounding percentage of 1,180%, deposits by 737%, and invested funds showed an increase of 1,316%. More statistics from our platform performance last year can be found in on Debitum Network blog.

Most of the assets on our platform are short-term varying from 1 to 3 months, average asset term being 52 days, and the average amount of an asset is 10,750 Euros. Thus, you can choose a flexible amount to invest, or cover the whole asset if you want. Average interest rates for industries ranged from 6.50% to 12%, which may be lower than interest rates offered on P2P platforms that offer personal loans to invest in, but as we focus on the safety of investors’ funds we do not see it as a drawback. There hasn’t been a single default on our platform and our professional partners loan originators successfully keep default rates under 2%.

Right from the start, we also worked hard to offer a better user experience by offering as many functionalities as possible. Apart from offering above mentioning extra guarantees to protect investors’ funds, we added a buyback guarantee, which means that in case the borrower is late with the repayment (usually more than 90 days), the broker is obliged to buy back the outstanding principal and interest.

At the end of the year, we also added an auto-invest functionality, which ensures that any time an investor has cash available in his account, the program will automatically invest it into loans and maximize the interest earned. Thus, an investor can set the parameters for investing and do not worry about his investments as the auto-invest program will work on its’ own investing into relevant assets.

What to expect of Debitum Network in 2019?

Growth in the number of users and investors is also expected to continue in the same fashion as we saw last year. Our team would like to reach 100 million Euro portfolio by the end of the year. We also expect to reach more geographic markets in Europe (current targets are: Latvia, Estonia, and Poland). Negotiations are taking place with 7 new loan originators who will likely join Debitum Network platform and start uploading new assets on our platform by the end of the first quarter. Four new risk assessors from Latvia, Estonia, Poland are expected to start offering their services on our platform soon too.

At the beginning of 2019, we expect to further improve the UX of our platform and include a strong mobile experience. Our team puts a lot of efforts to bring more depositing options and increase a range of business loans for investors to invest in and participate in the growth of SMEs around the world (earning even bigger interest rates at the same time).

Debitum Network will keep on adding new technical features, offer the safest possible business assets for investment. This year, we plan to introduce the secondary market, create a referral program, update the design of our website and platform to name just a few.

If you haven’t registered on Debitum Network platform, it might be the right time to try it. Registration is free and takes only 2 minutes.

We wish you a profitable New Year,

Debitum Network team

NEO Finance

Beginning of the year is the best time to recap the previous year and to reflect on the year ahead. In terms of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and fintech market in general, 2018 was really exciting and eventful in Lithuania, one of the fastest-growing countries that prioritise fintech. It seems that 2019 should be equally interesting.

Further on, I will focus on three aspects: (i) the most important 2018 events in the Lithuanian market, (ii) the most important 2018 events in NEO Finance and (iii) the outlook for 2019. I am convinced that this article will be of interest for those who want to get better acquainted with the microclimate in Lithuania, and also those looking for some interesting information on P2P in the country. I have a big bunch of information!

2018 in the Lithuanian P2P lending market was the year of ‘stabilisation’ and ‘settling down’. The Lithuanian P2P market grew: Although it was not a two-fold growth like in 2017, a growth of more than 50% was nonetheless impressive. In 2018, the Lithuanian P2P platforms issued consumer loans in the amount of EUR 26,748,691 (EUR 17,723,952 in 2017). In 2018, NEO Finance issued consumer loans in the amount of EUR 14,274,422 (53.4% market share), in 2017 – EUR 8,942,047 (50.5% market share).

P2P lending as a type of investment showed great results in 2018, significantly outweighing other types of investment. A comparison of P2P lending and other types of investment is provided below:

Speaking more broadly about the entire fintech industry, as the Chairman of Fintech Lithuania Association, I am pleased that Lithuania is becoming an increasingly progressive and attractive country. In 2018, the Bank of Lithuania has started cooperation with two global enterprises: Revolut, which has secured a Specialised bank license in Lithuania, and Google Payment Ltd, which was granted an electronic money institution licence. Despite the small area and population size, it is obvious that we are becoming more and more important players on the European fintech market.

Globally, I see a trend which I call ‘the second wave of fintech’. The first wave came some 20 years ago, around 1998, when such companies as PayPal were founded. Today, particularly given the EU’s Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) appearance, the second wave of fintech is visible even better, and this time, it is also felt in Lithuania, which was not the case 20 years ago. Favourable microclimate and laws in the country, as well as positive attitude to fintech enterprises, have determined the fact that we are now the second country in Europe, only behind the United Kingdom, to issue the largest number of electronic money institution (EMI) licenses (39 and 128 EMI licences, respectively).

Speaking further about the P2P market in Lithuania and its leader NEO Finance, some interesting developments have also happened, and the year was eventful.

Starting from the most obvious stats: by 31st December 2018, NEO Finance issued consumer loans in the amount of nearly EUR 27 million, whereas the other two Lithuanian P2P platforms totalled EUR 16.7 million and EUR 14 million. Furthermore, in October 2018, NEO Finance reached the P2P lending record in Lithuania, issuing consumer loans in the amount of EUR 1.5 million in one month.

Working intensely on issuing consumer loans, we have also improved our services. In 2018, we invested over EUR 200,000 in the development of our IT system.

We have also launched the Payment initiation service (PIS). At first, we used to offer it exclusively to our clients, but after we saw that its quality was clearly better than that of other similar services, we could not resist offering it to corporate clients. Currently, among our PIS clients lie the largest ticket distributor in Lithuania, two platforms for utilities collection, the largest restaurant guide, an electronic grade book service provider, etc.

Another landmark in our history has been the crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs platform. We are pleased to have been selected as participants of the campaign (Seedrs approve only 1% of applications). We are particularly pleased to have been the first Lithuanian company on Seedrs (later in 2018, a Lithuanian startup TransferGo became the second Lithuanian company on Seedrs).

In addition to the crowdfunding campaign, we announced the planned IPO. We will implement it soon, in Q1 2019. Other plans for 2019 include fast increase in the scope of our operations. As is the case every year, we will review our credit rating methodology: It is our unique methodology developed by one of the Board members of NEO Finance, a long-term head of risk management of one of the largest Lithuanian commercial banks. The method is based on the internal data of NEO Finance and other data available on the Lithuanian market.

I believe that the progressive trend will continue in Lithuania in 2019, while Brexit will boost the development of Lithuania as the fintech incubator. Meanwhile, NEO Finance will remain the leading Lithuanian P2P consumer loan platform.

by Evaldas Remeikis – Founder and Chair of the Board

Twino

I am delighted to say that 2018 has been the best year yet for TWINO investment platform – there are already more than 16,000 investors that have managed to fund a record high EUR 200 million worth of loans. The year also brought us multiple awards, numerous conferences, new features for you – our investors, and yet I am sure that it is just the beginning.

The biggest recognition that we received during the year was the Digital Top 50 award as the best B2C Scaleup in Europe, where the winner’s was selected by representatives of prominent companies, such as Google, McKinsey & Company and Rocket Internet SE. Another achievement was the launch of Currency Exposure functionality that lets our investors receive even higher returns by investing in loans that are pegged to the loan issuing country’s local currency.

During year 2019

We are aiming to add new product categories to further diversify our business and improve the offering for our investors. We will start by adding investments in car loans, this is something that will happen already pretty soon – Q1 2019.

In addition to that, we think that there is definitely a lot of potential for new lending products in the markets that we are already operating in. Therefore, we are exploring such lending categories as SME (small-to-medium enterprise) lending and invoice financing, property financing, etc. If we decide to move forwards with any of those, then you will be among the first ones to hear about that.

A major milestone of EUR 500 million worth of loans funded through TWINO investment platform is coming already in the first half of this year! Furthermore, we aim to breach the EUR 20 million of loans funded per month threshold this year as well.

Last but not least, we have quietly been working on something of great significance for quite some time already – stay tuned for more info on this!

Bulkestate

New perspectives on P2P financing and real estate business

With an abundance of current startups, you either go big or you do things differently. It takes skill and creative approach to go with the latter, though. One Baltic financing team Bulkestate has found a way and carved a nice niche for itself. Recently they have also become a member of AHK – the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

The company, founded by two Latvian entrepreneurs and real estate experts, focuses on finding a sweet spot between P2P financing, wholesale property sellers and retail buyers, who would otherwise never meet. Their platform enables separate buyers to come together and purchase the building as a group of future owners. While the deal execution is in the process – and Bulkestate takes extra safety measurements to ensure good outcome – part of it is funded via P2P lending, which offers investors particularly high-interest rates. Everybody wins!

Last year Bulkestate have successfully tested such combination on two large projects, buying and selling two large buildings in Riga. Both deals were huge successes – sellers got the price they wanted, investors made good profit and apartment owners got amazing properties around 15% below the market price.

One project, deal on Nometņu Street 18, is something Bulkestate is particularly proud of – a beautiful Art Nouveau building belonged to the University of Latvia, whose ability to negotiate is strictly limited by bureaucracy as in every governmental institution. University had previously attempted to sell the building, but the deal was unsuccessful. Bulkestate professionals made sure each step of the auction process was met, while also gathering buyers and money for the deal.

After closing the deal and purchasing the building, investors received back 843 757 € – investments + interest rates. It is worth noting that the annual return for this investment has been 17% – higher than on most platforms on the market. Those who invested over 10 000 € and 25 000 € received additional bonus via cashback incentive program, which rounds up to 21,8% annual return. Impressive, right?

In key figures this new Baltic company look just as good: last year’s average annual profit for their investors is 18,5% – largely unsurpassed by most other platforms. Together with investors, they’ve managed to fund 22 larger and smaller projects.

The total sum of the projects has grown approximately 4.5 times compared to 2017. So has grown the number of investors – there are now approx. 5 times more registered platform users than there were in 2017, German and Western European being most active. Bulkestate might be new kids on the block, but they sure know what they are doing.

So what are they up to in 2019? According to company representatives, development of real estate group buying is among the top priorities – last years’ experience has proven it works. Loans with real estate pledges and P2P lending is another part of business Bulkestate is strongly focused on – they plan to increase the number of investment sites per month (2 being the minimum) as well as the total sum of investments, aiming for larger objects as well.

Their plans, however, are not limited by large scale – being the accurate business people that they are, they plan to continue fine-tuning their platform, working with both IT professionals and users. If you are one of them and have a suggestion, let them know!

The blog is also among their plans for 2019 – business is important, but so is educating potential investors. There are many misconceptions about P2P lending and group buying that Bulkestate would like to clear.

At last but not least, they have mentioned expanding the team and business region, offering investment sites in multiple countries. With their experience, this ambition sounds very plausible.         

So if you think about becoming an investor, you are very welcome to register on the platform. Company representatives note that three new investment objects are coming soon, so make sure you don’t miss them.

Grupeer

Grupeer is a relatively young company among other p2p lending platforms, however we are growing fast and 2018 remembered for us as the year when demand for our deals outpaced the supply. Investors were “hungry” for our projects and they were sold out as soon as they became available. This temporary shortage gave signal that Grupeer is on the right track and we set ambitious goals for 2019.

First of all, we are expanding our presence, we aim to enter new markets, outside Europe in the upcoming months. Our business development team is travelling all over the world to make new partnerships and place new deals on the platform.

Secondly, we are adding new products. In Spring 2019 the new revolutionary product will be launched- a Grupeer Stability Fund. This will give opportunity to investors to buy “square meter” in the commercial property that already generates income. “Square meter” is a metaphor, on practice it will give investor ownership of the building proportionate to his or her invested amount.

This is aimed for long term investors, who want to earn stable interest throughout the years and for those who don’t want commit large sum in investing in the whole property. This will secure their financial future and can be passed to their children.

Thirdly, Grupeer in 2019 will launch a “p2p aggregator”, the service that will show all available investment deals from p2p platforms. Grupeer will be a “one-stop-shop” for all deals on the market. Additionally, Grupeer will sell turn-key p2p platforms.

And finally, Grupeer will launch a payment system, which will ease the way how clients add funds to the platform.

Besides the innovations that are coming in 2019, we are working on getting new loan originators for our current products- loan deals and development financing loans. 

DoFinance

Year 2018 was second year of DoFinance platform, and it was highlighted by stable system performance and client confidence in our operations continuity.

Platform in numbers:

At the end on 2018 there were 3514 registered clients – more than 40% investors from Germany, followed by Spain (22%), Italy (11%) and Netherland investors (10%). Average amount of investment was 2695 euros, but biggest – more than 100 000 euros. Average investment term in 2018 was 204 days or 6,8 months with 9% Auto invest as the most popular investment program.

“We are very proud that 98.5% of our customer investments earned promised interest rates in DoFinance. This was our key goal for 2018 – to ensure that our investor money is working as promised – and we achieved that by introducing investor investment protection solution,” Viesturs Kulikovskis, one of co-founders of Alfa Finance (mother company of DoFinance) sharing thoughts about 2018.

Thinking about 2019 there are three key activities behind DoFinance performance:

• Investors expect that platforms keep their promises and investor money works. This is at the very core of p2p business and DoFinance will keep this as priority. All shiny-and-fancy features in platforms are just good-to-have in comparison with keeping the promises;
• As the second it’s worth to mention double sizing loan portfolio on DoFinance. As our investor confidence in platform stability and performance is growing, naturally is growing demand for more options to invest. Alfa Finance see great opportunities how to supply this investor demand by retaining promise “investor money will earn” on very high level.
• Investing on DoFinance always had been very easy and fast due to simplified process. Just within minutes investor can understand how to invest and start this “money earning journey” on our platform. But as investors have different needs and expectations regarding investment options, on top of “easy and fast investing” we are about to introduce more diversified investment opportunities in 2019.        

Hat Dir der Artikel gefallen? Auf welche Ankündigungen freust Du dich am meisten in 2019? Bitte schreibe mir Dein Feedback dazu in die Kommentare. Wenn Du Ideen hast, wie man die Neujahrsartikel noch verbessern kann, zum Beispiel durch bestimmte Fragen (Wie viele neue Investoren sollen hinzukommen? Welches Darlehensvolumen soll erreicht werden?), dann schreibe mir Dein Feedback dazu ebenfalls in die Kommentare!

Um keine neuen Beiträge mehr zu verpassen, kannst Du dich gerne auch in meinen Newsletter eintragen und Du wirst benachrichtigt, sobald neue Beiträge erscheinen.

Photo by Melanie Magdalena on Unsplash

Denny Neidhardt

denny@rethink-p2p.de | Webseite | Neueste Artikel

Hi, ich bin Denny! Seit Januar 2019 schreibe ich auf diesem Blog über meine Erfahrungen beim Investieren in P2P Kredite. Meine Analysen sollen Privatanlegern dabei helfen reflektierte und gut informierte Anlageentscheidungen treffen zu können. Dafür schaue ich mir die Risikoprofile der einzelnen P2P Plattformen an, hinterfrage deren Entwicklungen, teile meine persönlichen Einschätzungen und beobachte übergeordnete Trends aus der Welt des Crowdlendings.    
Mein Bestseller "Geldanlage P2P Kredite" gilt in Fachkreisen als das beste deutschsprachige Finanzbuch zum gleichnamigen Thema. Zudem versammeln sich in der P2P Kredite Community auf Facebook tausende von Privatanlegern, die sich regelmäßig über die Anlageklasse P2P Kredite austauschen. 

• Denny Neidhardt

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  Portfolio Update 04/2024: €93.660 in P2P Kredite
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