Italy

Interview with Maurizio Sella, CEO of Smartika Spa

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What is Smartika about?

Smartika is a fully licensed Payment Intermediary (IP) authorized to operate in the P2P field by the Bank of Italy and is the leading Italian P2P platform, with over 3,085 loans granted to individuals for  16.5 million EUR, lent by 5,445 lenders.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

Lend money in an innovative and ethical way and take control of how your own money is invested.

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

Simple process, fast response and good rates (about 3% lower APR than industry)

maurizio-sellaWhat ROI can investors expect?

Lenders have had returns of approximately 6% after fees and defaults.

You originally started as Zopa Italy. Can you share the story with our readers?

We arrived in Italy too early (in 2008) when the P2P business was not understood and “boycotted” by banks and institutions in general. It then took over 2 years to work with the regulators in order to find the best solution for framing the P2P business. The European Directive 2009/110/CE came to our rescue and we were finally granted the license as an IP in 2012.

And what is the situation for p2p lending in Italy now?

Italy is a country of 60 million people, with a consumer market that has finally bottomed (at a still respectable 19 billion EUR) and P2P has the potential to grow exponentially. Time works every day in our favour in terms of trust, reputation, and market penetration at a time when banks and financial institutions are slowly pulling out of the personal loan market. Continue reading →

Trustbuddy Acquires Geldvoorelkaar and Prestiamoci

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Trustbuddy has entered into an agreement to acquire Italian Prestiamoci, a long-term Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lender, for a total of EUR 5.3 million in order to strengthen its offering of business loans to small and medium-sized enterprises and consumer credit in most European countries.

Furthermore TrustBuddy has agreed to acquire Dutch Geldvoorelkaar for a consideration of EUR10.6m. The consideration comprises EUR 3 million cash, EUR 4 million through the issue of new shares at a 20% premium to the pre-announcement share price and a EUR 3.6 million vendor loan of which 50% is redeemed in January 2016 and 50% redeemed in January 2017. Shares issued as part of the consideration will be subject to lock-up restrictions which expire in January 2016 in respect of 50% of the shares and January 2017 for the remainder.

Both acquisitions remain subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions. In particular, the acquisition of Prestiamoci is conditional upon Prestiamoci receiving a payment services, PSD, license. The Company is currently considering various financing options, including a potential equity fundraising, to part finance the acquisitions.

Geldvoorelkaar (see earlier coverage)

Geldvoorelkaar is the first P2P lending platform with a credit licence issued by the Dutch Financial uthority (AFM).  Geldvoorelkaar offers a professional and established alternative source of financing for SMEs.

  • Geldvoorelkaar opens up European SME market opportunities to TrustBuddy. Management believes there to be substantial demand for alternative lending sources in the Nordic market in particular in P2P lending in the Netherlands.
  • Geldvoorelkaar has been fully operational since 2012 and has a c60-65% estimated market share.
  • Year to date, Geldovoorelkaar has funded EUR 20 million of SME loans with an average revenue margin approaching 6% with no active marketing.
  • Geldvoorelkaar is a strong SME platform with EUR 1.6 million expected revenue for 2014 and growth in the Netherlands expected at an average of 80% in the following two years.*
  • Geldvoorelkaar is already profitable with an expected earnings before interest and tax for 2014 of EUR 0.7 million
  • Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, TrustBuddy has agreed to acquire Geldvoorelkaar for a consideration of EUR10.6m. The consideration comprises EUR 3 million cash, EUR 4 million through the issue of new shares at a 20% premium to the pre-announcement share price and a EUR 3.6 million vendor loan of which 50% is redeemed in January 2016 and 50% redeemed in January 2017. Shares issued as part of the consideration will be subject to lock-up restrictions which expire in January 2016 in respect of 50% of the shares and January 2017 for the remainder.

Prestiamoci (see earlier coverage)

Prestiamoci is an Italian private P2P lending company focussing on long term consumer loans.

  • Prestiamoci has established a licenced P2P platform in the highly regulated Italian market. The acquisition is conditional on Prestiamoci obtaining EEA-wide PSD license approval, enabling European roll-out.
  • Prestiamoci re-launched its platform in May 2014 and has since funded EUR 175k with and average revenue margin of 4%.
  • Acquisition adds diversification to TrustBuddy’s existing offering into a product with lower regulatory risk and increased revenue visibility.
  • Prestiamoci’s seasoned management team joining TrustBuddy management will bring significant experience within credit risk assessment.
  • TrustBuddy expects to rollout a consumer instalment loan product in new markets in 2015, and envisages 80% of revenue from this new product from the Nordic markets.

In September 2014 Prestiamoci had concluded a financing round of 450K EUR and in October 2013 a previous capital increase of 550K EUR. According to sources, Digital Magics Angel Network ,which invested just a year ago and provided strategic support in refocusing Prestiamoci, achieves a gain of about 300% on the transaction. Continue reading →

Smava Raises 4 Million; Gets Share in Prestiamoci

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German p2p lending service Smava has raised 4 million Euro in a new round. New investor in this round is the largest Italian private bank “Banca Sella”. Smava also joins in on Italian p2p lending service Prestiamoci saying that Smava aims to grow to a leading European p2p lending service.

This is actually the second start Smava undertakes for European expansion. Smava Poland was merged after a rather short time in operation with another Polish service.

After this round VC Earlybird holds 54%, VC Neuhaus Partner holds 20%, Banca Sella holds 10% and the founder team holds 4% of Smava shartes.

In its press release Smava stresses its successful growth. However in the past year Smava had to deal with a significant decline in new loan volume funded per month.

P2P Lending Sites in Europe

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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.