German p2p lending Smava completed another financing round. The new capital raised comes from the VCs that already invested in earlier rounds.
Earlybird increased their investment from previously 39% of shares to now 56% and Neuhaus Partners increased their part from 12.5% of share to now 17%.
Speculation is that the high customer acquisition costs (especially for borrowers) led to the need for another financing round. Estimates put the cost for borrower acquisition as high as 500 Euro. In certain customer acquisition partnerships, Smava pays the partner up to 1.3% of the loan amount (equals 650 Euro for a borrower with the maximum loan amount of 50,000 Euro). While Smava is growing, the growth rate has in the past months stopped to accelerate and is about 2 million Euro funded loan volume per month (chart).
Notice the headline of the article. I have chosen it, because I found it hard to describe what Fidorpay is. And Fidor itself meets the broad scope of questions, that the novelty service provokes, with a main FAQ of no less than 115 questions and answers. But I’ll try my best:
Fidorpay is a prepaid e-wallet that can be used via web or mobile apps (they currently have an iPhone app and are working on android). Once a user has transferred money into this account he can send money to other Fidor Pay users.
Sounds like Paypal? There are important differences:
The Fidorpay system works nearly in real-time. That means money is credited to the receiver’s account within a very short time frame and can be used by him then. (Paypal offers fast notification, but it takes much longer for the money to be actually available in the recipient’s account for future transactions).
Sending (and receiving) money is fee free
Starting February, 1st 2011 Fidorpay users can now lend money via Fidorpay to ‘friends’
So how does the lending part work?
A Fidorpay user can ‘lend’ any amount between 5 and 500 Euro to anyone. This is possible even if the recipient does not (yet) have an account but his email-address or mobile phone number is know to the lender. Loans are interest-free. They do not have a fixed term, instead the lender can send the friend a request to repay anytime. Unlike sending money, lending is not fee-free; Fidorpay charges a one time fee of 0.49 EUR (approx. 0.68 US$).
Is this p2p lending then?
It is in a pure technical/infrastructural way, since it does enable one person to lend another person money (over a distance) via internet or mobile phone.
But it is not the p2p lending in the sense it is most commonly used in this blog for it lacks any marketplace and validation aspect. It only takes a lending process that would have offline taken place with cash handed over to a convenient online level. If the borrower refuses to repay the loan Fidorpay itself does not enforce the repayment in any way.
How is it relevant to p2p lending then?
Fidor with Fidorpay shows how an infrastructural footing for p2p lending could look that omits most of the conventional banking structure. Since Fidor has a banking license, some of the regulation requirements are solved. If all lenders and borrowers of a p2p marketplace would (mandatory) become Fidorpay users then all payments and repayments could take place inside the Fidorpay system. The process would become faster and transactions could possibly be cheaper.
Are we there yet?
Far from it. I think Fidorpay gives a glimpse of what mechanisms could be used in the p2p lending marketplace of the future. Since it is currently not a main banking connection of the customers, amounts in the wallets are small. And maximum transaction amounts are limited for security and regulation reasons.
But ‘conventional’ banks should watch out and p2p marketplaces should think and review what possibilities Fidorpay and potentially evolving similar services will offer them to advance their service.
Key data about Fidor and Fidorpay
Founded 2003 Fidor Bank AG commenced its banking activities in December 2009 and brands itself as a ‘community bank’ using web 2.0 instruments in combination with latest technology. Related video: Speech by Matthias Kröner at Finovate, London. Fidor Bank states 19,600 users at the end of 2010. The current number of users is approx. 23,000. It is unclear from the press statements if all users are paying customers.
Fidorpay is available to residents of Germany with a German bank account.
Smava in the time from September, 15th 2010 to October, 15th 2010 offered subsidized loans to new customers (borrowers). The offer was limited to loan amounts up to 2,500 Euro and only available for 36 months loan terms.
Eligible borrowers could take out a loan at an APR of 2.99%. Since lenders received “normal” rates (typically between 5 and 13% nominal depending on credit grades) Smava subsidizes the difference. Over the duration of 36 months this will cost Smava about 150 to 300 Euro per loan.
According to Wiseclerk stats about 150 loans with a total volume of 350,000 Euro closed at the reduced rate.
Reasons for this marketing promo
Smava did not comment about the motives behind this offer. While the resulting CPO of this offer is higher then with other marketing channels, Smava could have speculated that the press picks the special offer and that the traffic from the generated press coverage leads to additional loan requests that are not eligible for the offer. Furthermore the rate of 2.99% APR could place Smava prominently ranked on loan price comparison sites.
Results
In my opinion this offer had low success. Judging by economic facts it might be considered a failure. Little additional press coverage was generated by this special offer. The total loan volume funded per month did not rise compared to previous months. The offer might aid the positive image of the Smava brand though.
Auxmoney.com is the second largest (by loan volume) p2p lending service in Germany. The new loan volume per month is about 700,000 Euro (approx 900,000 US$). A recent estimate puts the monthly revenue of Auxmoney at about 57,000 Euro (approx. 74,000 US$; based on August numbers). The majority of these revenues comes from the sale of so-called ‘certificates’, which the borrower can optionally buy. Examples for certificates are credit scores, income validations or car value assessments.
The fees for the optional certificates as well as the listing fee are due in any case – regardless whether the borrower’s request for a loan is funded or not.
Effective September 1st, 2010, Auxmoney raised several fees:
Lender fee for successful bids is now 1% of bid amount – at least 1 Euro (previously there was a flat fee of 1 Euro per successful bid)
Borrower fees for successfully funded loans are now 2.95% of loan amount (previously 1.95% or 2.50% of loan amount depending on loan term)
A new rule in the terms and conditions states that the auction duration of a listing that has not completely funded after 14 days will automatically prolong as long as the listing is not funded or the maximum duration of 90 days is reached or the borrower objects to the prolongation. The borrower can object to the extension any day he wants by pressing a button in the online interface. If he does that the listing ends after 5 more days. Every additional day (!) of extension (beyond the original 14 days) the borrower is charged 1 Euro (approx. 1.28 US$). Therefore if the loan does not fund within 90 days and the borrower did not stop the listing, he is charged 76 Euro extension fee on top of the original 9.95 Euro listing fee.
With the legal construct Auxmoney has selected, the listing fee, the fees for the certificates and the extensions need not be factored into the APR that Auxmoney calculates.
Could these circumstances damage the image of p2p lending?
P2P Lending worldwide has received positive press coverage and benefits from offering an alternative to the currently ill reputed banking sector. Only occasionally are single players causing bad publicity (e.g. the high default rates of Prosper or the Boober failure). Looking at the German market, press coverage for p2p lending was nearly all positive. One exception was the warning of a well-known consumer advocacy which accused Auxmoney of using false marketing claims on its website. Auxmoney sued the publisher – the case is still ongoing.
The latest change in the fee policy of Auxmoney could lead to a negative change in the perception of p2p lending by consumers. Should internet users start to associate p2p lending with high fees that are charged even if no loan was obtained (currently on average 10-20% of all loan listing on Auxmoney are funded – see green line in this chart) then p2p lending would risk losing any competitive advantages over bank loans.
Fees at other p2p lending services have risen several times in the past too in the struggle of these marketplaces to become profitable. While these fee increases do impact the attractiveness for the users the difference is that at least the fees in most cases only apply to loan transactions on funded loans.
Visualizations are great to show data that would otherwise just be a long list. I decided to create a map of the p2p lending landscape in Europe. It shows active and discontinued p2p lending services in Europe (including p2p microfinance). Not listed are sites that are in pre-launch stage. All of these marketplaces have been featured earlier in the P2P-Banking.com blog. If you want more information about any of them just enter the name in the search box on the top right of this blog.
Notice to other websites: You are free to copy and use this map, provided you agree not to alter or resize the image and you will set a link to this article.
Notice to p2p lending sites: If you want to be included in a future version of this map, contact me to learn how.
In German the “green” party has initiated a parliament inquiry asking the government to ask 25 questions regarding it’s position towards p2p lending. While the party in the preamble describes p2p lending as a chance for consumers potentially offering them more choices, the wording of most of the questions exhibits that the green party is mostly concerned about the risks and implies that p2p lending is not enough regulated.
