Below is a P2P lending comparison table comparing most important features across best p2p lending platforms in Europe and UK.
The principle of peer to peer lending in Europe is quite simple. On the one hand, an investor would like to lend through P2P lending platforms, on the other hand, a borrower.
The P2P platform then acts as an intermediary that connects supply with demand, ensures the administration of the loan and the transfer of money between the lender and the borrower, and collects a fee from both of them
Today’s lenders in Europe has a variety of choices for peer lending sites. With so many choices available, the p2p lending europe market has become much more competitive. There’s no such thing as “the best”. The p2p lending platform, which today seems to be an ideal option, may not be an ideal choice in 1 year.
The most important rule that you should follow on P2P Lending regardless of your investment profile is to ensure you have sufficient diversification within your investment portfolio, platforms, and geography.
This strategy will provide you more stable returns on your investment and lower your exposure to the risks associated with platform and any individual borrower defaulting on their loan.
The minimum investment amount in most p2p lending platforms is 10 Eur. It's worth a try. You will learn along the way !
Are you already using some of this p2p lending platforms? Share your thoughts and questions on the forum.
Most peer to peer lending sites and marketplaces in Europe provide unsecured personal or p2p business loans, meaning there is no collateral to back the loan. The peer-to-peer lending platforms use an extensive analysis of each person and business that applies for a loan taking into account many factors the likes of monthly income, are they homeowners or not, debt history, credit card payment history,….etc.
By analyzing these factors they create a risk profile and based on that they decide if the applicant gets a loan and for which interest rate.
High-risk p2p loans in Europe offer retail investors high-interest rates but at the same time, they have a high chance of defaulting. A borrower is said to have defaulted when it fails (for any reason) to meet its repayment obligations – such as missing a monthly repayment installment.
Default rates are generally used to measure the average rate at which borrowers are expected to default across a given Peer-to-Peer lending platform. Default rates are generally derived from historical data and therefore cannot be used to predict the future default rate of a platform with any certainty.
As there is no collateral this can mean that an investor loses his invested/lent money. By diversifying your loans over many different loans with varying risks you can lower your risk…and this is what most investors do.
When Mintos entered the European market they decided to offer secured p2p loans. Up to that moment, this had not been done on a large scale yet in the European p2p lending market. And Mintos, therefore, created a great new addition to these loans.
Buyback guarantee secured p2p loans will net you, as an investor, less interest than unsecured loans, but it will greatly reduce your risk as Mintos will buy back the loan whenever the borrower defaults on his payment obligations for 60 days or more. In such a situation the loan is automatically bought back by the loan originator from the investor at the nominal value of the outstanding principal, plus accrued risk-free interest rate income.
This is a great system that greatly reduces your risk when you lend through p2p lending platforms.
Other peer-to-peer lending platforms in Europe offer different types of protection schemes to reduce the risks of bad loans. Here are other important protection types:
Collateral
This means that if a borrower defaults, the lender will be able to claim the collateral (e.g. property or vehicle) that the borrower has provided. If the borrower does not repay their loan then the collateral can be sold to cover any shortfall.
Collateral may be real estate in the case of a mortgage loan, a vehicle in the case of a car loan, or equipment in the case of a business loan, as well as many other types of collateral, as indicated under each loan.
When there is a collateral securing the loan. A loan to value (LTV) ratio is a number that describes the size of a loan compared to the value of the asset securing the loan. A higher LTV ratio suggests more risk because the assets behind the loan are less likely to pay off the loan
Personal Guarantee
For certain loans (e.g. business loans), other credit enhancements are obtained, such as a personal guarantee. It includes, for example, real estate objects, cars, company assets or shares, personal guarantee or third-party guarantees.
Provision Fund
Some Peer-to-Peer lending platforms operate internal reserve funds which are designed to protect the lenders against losses in the event that a borrower defaults on their repayment obligations. Reserve fund sizes and their terms vary between platforms. Reserve funds are not compulsory and there are no guarantees over their effectiveness.
Auto Invest enables users to make customized Filter and invests their funds in loans based on their standards automatically. Auto Invest feature saves time and effort. Before this feature is introduced, lenders were required to invest manually and often assess the status for new investments. The tool simply invests available funds on the loans, reinvesting whenever possible. The Auto Invest feature could be stopped and re-triggered at any time.
Auto Invest is a very effective tool for saving time spent on investment activities. It also allows you to access newly placed loans in the system before manually-made investments.
The low minimum investment makes diversification easy. The P2P lending character implies that you must construct a portfolio of hundreds of loans at which each loan is a small percent of the total portfolio.
Getting diversified across several loans is among the secrets to having a successful experience when investing in p2p lending. Like other investments, diversification will lower the possibilities of your investment returns volatility.
Short-term loans investments are more liquid or reachable in the event you want your cash. As soon as you've invested in loans you'll begin receiving payments on your account within 30-45 days. The moment your balance goes over minimal investment amount you may invest your money in new loans with auto invest feature. With p2p lending you're getting interest and principal payments for each loan every month.
By definition, Compound interest is interest added to the principal of a deposit or loan thus the extra interest brings more interest. This increase of interest is known as compounding. In comparison to simple Interest at which just the original capital earn interest, the compound interest gives more advantage for Lenders.
One of the problems if you decide to invest in long-term loans on peer to peer lending sites is that it's hard to turn around and sell them if you need the cash you've invested.
The Secondary market is where investors can place their investments for sale to other registered investors. Secondary market allows lenders to cash out loans early. To do this a lender simply sell his loans at Premium or discount. Investors can exit their investments by selling the remaining loan to another investor.
However, a successful sell-out requires both a willing buyer and willing seller and there are no guarantees that a buyer will be found. Where a buyer is found the selling lender may need to take a discount on the value of the loan at the point at which they wish to sell-out. Platform fees may also be applied on any loan fractions traded, on the part of the buyer, the seller, or both.
Some Peer-to-Peer lending platforms are open to international investors depending on which country you reside in or which citizenship you hold. Don’t be afraid of investing overseas. Investing abroad provides increased diversification of risk and can offer higher returns.
Within Peer-to-Peer lending, diversification of risk is the concept of spreading loan capital across a large number of different borrowers, platforms and location, in order to minimize the impact to the lender of any one borrower defaulting on his or her repayment obligation.
In some crowdfunding platforms you are qualified to invest if You have a bank account in the SEPA region or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU. If your bank does not use SEPA transfers. With Transferwise borderless account you get instant international bank details to receive money from over 30 countries around the world with zero fees. That means you can transfer money or get paid from the UK, the US, Australia, and any country in the Eurozone, and no-one pays any fees.
Some p2p platforms like Twino and Mintos in Europe offer loans conducted in different currencies to protect investors from currency risk. This functionality allows investors to choose the currency that they want to invest in. And every transaction is processed in the chosen currency (including deposits, withdrawals, investments, repayments, etc.).
Fees reduce the value of your investment. Over time, even ongoing fees that are small can have a big impact on your investment. When researching p2p lending sites be sure they didn’t charge any fee.
Alternative funding has gained worldwide popularity, becoming increasingly widespread in Europe as well. While it has many faces, the largest share of it is funding using the so-called Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms .
According to the Wikipedia definition, this is the practice of borrowing funds for individual borrowers or businesses through an online platform that directly connects them with lenders.
Companies providing such peer to peer loans work entirely online, with their lower operating costs allowing them to borrow money - very often at a far lower price than traditional financial institutions.
Thus, borrowers benefit from lower interest rates, and lenders achieve higher returns on their capital than other savings products.
The service providers ( P2P-lending platform ) receive a percentage of the loan amount against their brokerage services. Their function is in practice to meet potential borrowers and lenders.
Most of these P2P loans are unsecured loans, most of which are aimed at business.
Interest rates on loans are often determined by lenders on the basis of the reverse auctions model or the lowest interest rate on which they lent their funds. Another way may be based on a fixed interest rate, depending on the credit scorer's credit rating.
On some peer-to-peer lending platforms, in order to reduce the risk and volume of bad loans, creditors themselves decide whether to allocate funds to a borrower or not.
After the end of the financial crisis, borrowers began to look for lower interest rates and access to credit. On the other hand, lenders were looking for a higher return on their investment. Banks, struggling with tight regulation, have encountered serious obstacles to meeting the growing market needs.
This created a serious vacuum in peer-to-peer lending, filled with P2P platforms . They are characterized by a lower level of regulation due to the fact that they are intermediaries in the relationship between creditors and borrowers.
The peer-to-peer lending industry has seen significant growth, especially in developed countries with advanced financial markets. In the United States, these platforms have been granted 6.6 billion credits, or 128% growth over the past year, with the country's largest volume market.
In terms of the amount of single credit granted, however, the United Kingdom is ahead of the United States, with the size of 72% larger. Experts believe that Europe is the next region in which this type of lending will experience a real boom.
Alternative financial markets on the Old Continent reached a volume of nearly € 3 billion in 2014, an increase of 144% on an annual basis, according to the same Business Insider survey.
In France, for example, the small market for P2P-lending has grown by 4,000% in the past year to € 8,2 million. This type of peer-to-peer lending is already gaining momentum in countries such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
With peer-to-peer credit, you become a bank yourself and lend money to private individuals. And because you're not doing this out of pure charity, you're getting interest from the borrower. P2P platforms take over the brokering and merging of financiers and borrowers on the Internet.
In addition, the P2P credit platforms carry out a credit assessment of borrowers and their financing projects. The platform makes the result available to investors in a so-called credit score.
Based on this score and your personal assessment of the borrower (the borrower presents himself and his financing project anonymized on the platform), you can make a decision for or against the investment. You can also decide on:
As a result, investing in peer-to-peer loans is much more individual and flexible than traditional forms of investment with their often long maturities and rigid terms.
All P2P platforms cooperate with a bank because it is regulated by law that only a credit institution with a full bank license is allowed to carry out banking transactions. The partner bank in the peer-to-peer loan is responsible for the transfer of money between the lender and the borrower.
As a rule, the bank charges for this a small percentage of the loan amount as a fee paid by the borrower.
P2P credit platforms promise partial returns above 10%. Don't let it dazzle you. Experience shows that many investors have P2P loans in your portfolio that fail. This reduces the realistically expected return for investors to approximately 4 to 6%.
However, interest rates in P2P lending are still significantly higher than the return on traditional forms of investment.
We are still in a low interest rate phase. This benefits all those who borrow money, for example, to conclude a building financing or to take out a car loan. For investors, on the other hand, these are not good times.
Most traditional forms of investment, such as daily money or fixed time money, are still below the inflation rate in return. That is, while your money is in the account, it loses its value. Investing in P2P loans can thus be a lucrative alternative to traditional low-interest investments.
First of all, select a P2P platform on which you want to make your investment. Criteria by which you choose or against a platform can be:
If you have chosen a platform, register online. To do so, follow the instructions of the respective website. Here's a complete list of all the platforms.
In the second step, select a project you want to invest in. The platform provides you with information on the individual loan requests: the person of the borrower about the project to be financed and — most importantly — the creditworthiness of the debtor.
Based on several hundred factors, including information from credit valuers, the platform creates an individual credit score for each loan application. This will give you guidance on how much the probability that a borrower will repay the money as expected.
The expected return is also based on the credit quality class. Good creditworthiness means low return prospects, but the risk of default is also low. A low credit rating, on the other hand, carries a high risk for your investment, but the expected return is also high.
Automatically invest through the P2P platform As an alternative to manually selecting investment projects, you can choose the automatic distribution of your capital by a portfolio manager on most platforms. The latter assigns your money to one or more credits.
To do this, you deposit once how much risk you want to take and how high the investment per loan should be at least and maximum. You can also decide whether you want to refinance your profits.
The disbursement of your return will be based on the platform you wish (that is, if you want to end your investment) or along with the capital used. If you want your money back before the end of the loan term, you can usually sell the loan to another lender for a small fee.
So is Peer to Peer lending safe?. The P2P platforms promise some measures to mitigate the risk. In a first step, the platform will contact the debtor and try to find out why he did not pay. If this does not work, a reminder is issued by the intermediary partner bank. If the debtor still does not pay, the termination of the loan as well as the efforts of a collection agency follows.
The collection procedure is between the bank and the borrower. As an investor, you have no opportunity to contact the defaulting debtor, he remains anonymous. However, many platforms offer good transparency as to what stage the collection process is currently in progress, so that you can find out what your money is going on.
Particularly in view of the fact that P2P loans are mainly used by borrowers who have little or no chances in the traditional credit market, the risk of default in P2P lending must not be underestimated.
Some P2P platforms, such as Mintos www.mintos.com, offer a so-called buy-back guarantee. This promises to buy back delayed loans and interest accrued up to then from the defaulting debtor, so that the creditor is relieved.
However, as an investor, you must be aware that such a buy-back guarantee can also be cancelled. If credit losses accumulate on a platform, it can only cover it up to a certain point. After all, even the platform cannot afford to buy unlimited debts.
A second, big risk is the platform itself. If the platform goes bankrupt, your capital is also inevitably gone. Many P2P platforms are relatively young and not yet on the market for very long. This means that they have little equity and can quickly become victims of bankruptcies.
When the platform publishes financial reports or statistics on their growth, lending volume, investors and default rates on its website, you should track the figures to assess the risk of bankruptcy.
From the risk of credit loss and the risk of platform players, the most important rules for investing money in P2P loans are also derived:
There is still a pitfall that you absolutely need to know about peer-to-peer loans: Taking. Unlike, for example, stock profits, the withholding tax is not automatically withheld. As an investor, you are responsible for taxation of your profits from P2P loans and must prove the interest payments from each individual loan you have invested in.
Some platforms offer the compilation of all interest income as a service, while others require you to determine and sum up the income yourself.
When you decide to invest in peer-to-peer loans, you should always consider the risk of default. The amount of money you invest in P2P loans ultimately depends on your total assets. In general, we recommend investing only sums where you could lose a total loss.
Here are some popular blog posts for investors:
Here are some other blogs you should include in your repertoire
Here are some important places to get info and interact with other investors.
For a more in depth look at the world of peer to peer lending. Here's a list of recommended reading - all available through Amazon!
Breaking Banks: The Innovators, Rogues, and Strategists Rebooting Banking
The End of Banking: Money, Credit and The Digital Revolution
Commission proposal for a regulation on European crowdfunding services providers (Europe)
Disclaimer
All information provided at Global P2P Lending is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Please contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation.
Alternative investments can be risky and it may not be suitable for your financial situation. You should always conduct your own due diligence before making any investment decision.
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