P2P platform summary for 2020

Last 6 months have been crazy - for P2P, stock market and probably - many people lives in general. It is almost impossible to follow all the events, so I will try to do a short summary of what has happened so far in 2020 in context of P2P.

8 P2P platforms have shut down

Most likely frauds:

• Envestio was shut down on Jan 21st, 2020. Declared bankrupt on June 3rd, 2020

• Kuetzal was shut down on Jan 12th, 2020. Declared bankrupt on June 8th, 2020

• Monethera stopped operations on Mar 27th, 2020. Their statement: “we can’t offer you any final solution“

• Grupeer stopped operations on March 27th, 2020. They keep posting bullshit blog posts, but office is closed, team fired, withdrawals don't work, fake loans are confirmed. And UK registrar of Companies has issued a Notice about Company's dissolution on 7th of April, 2020

• Agrikaab was shut down in March, 2020.

Probably bad timing:

• Zeltum was shut down on Jan 27th, 2020, only 2 days after affiliate offer was announced

• Boldyield was shut down on Feb 3rd, 2020, only after 11 months of operations. CEO previously worked at Grupeer.

Run out of money:

• Orca was shut down on April 20th, 2020, liquidator appointed on May 26h, 2020

7 P2P platforms are struggling

Looks very suspicious:

• FastInvest has been delaying withdrawals for up to 2,5 months. At the same time they have increased their interest rates to 18%. On top of that they will add a withdrawal fee of 1.5 EUR.

• Wisefund investors have doubts if borrowers & projects are legitimate, some of them want to create another lawsuit. Top issues: no updates to projects, early exit disabled, buyback guarantee not working, money frozen.

• TFG Crowd investors report that payments for projects are almost random. One person receives payment for project A, another person does not, etc. Are they using Schrödinger's cat as an accountant? At the same TFG allows to “invest“ money that is not available for withdrawals. WTF?

Overpromised & got fucked by Covid:

• DoFinance removed BuyBack Guarantee and have issues with withdrawals since Mar 2020. Good part: team is still doing updates and processing part of payments.

• Crowdestor decided to freeze all payments for 3 months on March 20th, 2020. Time will tell, how many of their projects will be able to pay afterwards. Some investors might get a taste of their 1% buyback guarantee.

• Bondora Go & Grow withdrawals have big delays, are repaid only partly.

• Mintos added pending payments, loan extensions, secondary market fee of 0.85%, and have more problematic Loan Originators:

  • Peachy decided to discontinue operations on Mar 6th, 2020.

  • IFN Extra Finance - National Bank of Romania has revoked their license. No new loans can be issued from Mar 17th, 2020.

  • Varks (Finko Group) lost license in Armenia on Mar 24th, 2020. Finko Group is not able to cover Varks outstanding portfolio of €20 million, they might repay money to investors till end of 2022.

  • Capital Service loans were suspended on Apr 6th, 2020 because of missing payments. Outstanding portfolio: €15 million

  • Akulaku got suspended on Apr 16th, 2020. Loans outstanding: €30 million.

  • GetBucks Botswana and Zambia got suspended on Apr 30th, 2020. Loans outstanding: €10 million.

  • ExpressCredit Zambia got suspended on Apr 30th, 2020. Loans outstanding: €4 million.

  • AlexCredit loans got suspended at first and downgraded to D on Apr 28th, 2020. Pending payments: €2,8 million.

  • Cashwagon was suspended on Mintos on Jun 6th, 2020. Their Vietnam office is closed, bank accounts frozen. Formal reason - too high interest rates. Outstanding portfolio on Mintos: €7,6 million.

3 P2P platforms raised money

• EvoEstate closed €180k funding round

• EstateGuru raised €923k on Seedrs platform

• Crowdestor raised €700k from their own investors (total goal: €1.25 million). Investing process is split in several campaigns, with 26% interest rate or option to convert to equity later.

1 P2P platform sold

• Viventor: Jun 11th, 2020: Dutch FinTech investor acquires ViVentor, deal amount: not disclosed.

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Key takeaways

1. Covid helped to expose P2P frauds and weaker platforms. At the same time lot of investors who thought P2P is risk-free, got proven otherwise.

2. All the Loan Originator problems prove that Mintos ratings are bullshit and their guarantees don't have enough backing. P2P marketplaces in general don't look so attractive anymore.

3. We live in times when the best P2P platforms don't have very high expectations - just don't mess with investors. Those platforms that did not change rules during last months - will probably have lot of investor confidence.

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P.S. Join “High-risk investments“ Telegram group for an informal discussion.