Germany

Review of peer to peer lending developments in 2008

wiseclerk 3 Comments

As the end of 2008 approaches here is a look back on the highlights of peer to peer lending news in 2008:

Domain kredit.de sold for record price: 892,000 Euro

wiseclerk

The German domain name kredit.de was sold today for 892,000 Euro (approx 1.14 million US$). ‘Kredit’ is the german word for ‘loan’, a very valuable keyword in targeting consumers seeking loans online.

The domain was bought by Unister GmbH from the Abacho AG. It is the highest price ever for a domain sale of the country top level domain .de. Previous examples of .de-domain sales for high prices were chat.de for 320,000 Euro or arbeitsmarkt.de for 200,000 Euro.

Abacho AG still owns the domain kredit.com and said it plans to sell that domain through Sedo, too.

(Source: p2p-kredite.com)

Smava raises 4 million Euro in second VC round

wiseclerk 2 Comments

Smava logoSmava.de, offering p2p lending in Germany, today successfully closed it’s second VC round. Earlybird and Neuhaus Partners invested 4 million Euro (approx 5.5 million US$). Earlybird did already invest 4 million Euro in Smava in the first round. Smava CEO Alexander Artopé announced that Smava will use the money for product development, marketing and internationalization.

Smava funded a loan volume of 535,000 Euro in September generating revenues (1percent origination fee) of 5,350 Euro plus an undisclosed amount (my estimate:<1,000 Euro) in commissions for insurance products.

The growth of the funded volumes per month can be seen in this chart.

Demand at Boober NL slows

wiseclerk

Demand at Boober.nl is slowing. When I checked today only two loan listings were open. The following curve showing unique loan requests definitly shapes in the wrong direction. Boober lenders discus this development in this forum thread.


(Source Booberwatch.nl)

Since the launch 15 months ago, about 2.4 million Euro (about 3.8M US$) loan volume has been funded through Boober.

German Smava.de has funded about the same volume (2.3 million Euro) but after a slower start 14 months ago, lately the volume growth accelerated moderately.

Smava loan volume
(Smava loan volume, Source: Smava loan stats at Wiseclerk.com).

On Smava as well as on Boober average borrower interest rates have risen considerably since the start. This reduces the attractiveness for borrowers.

New at Smava – business loans, larger amounts, longer terms

wiseclerk

German p2p lending service Smava.de made some changes:

  • Borrowing for business purposes is now allowed. The borrower still is an individual person but is no longer limited on private purposes of the loan
  • Borrowers may borrow up to 25,000 Euro (approx 39,200 US$), previously the maximum was 10,000 Euro
  • Maximum amount any lender can invest in the marketplace is raised to 100,000 Euro (previously 25,000 Euro)
  • Loan terms are now selectable 36 or 60 months (previously only 36 months); the insurance pools (Anleger-Pools) are seperated by credit grade and term. This complicated construct will influence lenders when deciding to bid on loans that are otherwise comparable but differ in loan term, since the level reached in the insurance pools directly impacts each payment rate.
  • Bad debt sales rates have been lowered for lower credit grades (previously it was 22.5% to 25%, now it is 15% to 25% depending on credit grade)

(Source: P2P-Kredite.com)

Since it's launch in February 2007 Smava has funded 457 loans with 2 million Euro (approx 3.14 million US$) loan volume. 8 loans have defaulted and currently 9 loans are late.