interview

Interview with Andris Rozenbahs, COO of Viventor

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What is Viventor about?

Viventor is about providing sensible investment opportunities for investors from all over Europe. As we started considering the idea of Viventor less than a year ago, peer-to-peer financing was achieving remarkable success in the US and the UK. In contrary, the “old continent” was relatively underserved.

And so the goal was set – to build a peer-to-peer lending platform for European investors that is accessible, makes investing convenient, and offers high quality services, investment opportunities, and the product itself.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

Firstly, it is the investments themselves. All loans currently offered are secured by liquid real estate mortgages, as well as come with Buyback Guarantee. The weighted-average LTV ratio of our loan book is 28.45%, and we are proud to be the market leaders in terms of providing such low-risk opportunities.

Secondly, the investors receive fixed monthly interest payments. Relatively few platforms do this, but we see it as an advantage for the investors. Instead of diminishing interest and trying to crack advanced formulas, we offer straightforward logics and exactly the same payments every month. We want to make investing convenient also for people relatively unfamiliar with the world of finance and peer-to-peer lending.

Thirdly, it is the simplicity and convenience of investing. We are constantly making efforts towards removing the friction from the investment process itself by building the platform and its UI simple and intuitive for any user. Improvements based on everyday findings are constantly implemented, new languages are added, and educational material is made available. Our aim is to for investing to be simple and enjoyable.

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

Viventor does not originate loans itself, and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

However, if we speak about the partner companies that have currently listed their loans on Viventor, there are a couple of things worth noting. The companies consist of professionals, possessing years of experience in non-bank lending and underwriting, and having their skin completely in the game. Also, access to financing for eligible borrowers is considerably faster than that offered by alternative creditors. This has been achieved by combining years of experience and knowledge with machine learning and other modern technologies.

Andris RozenbahsWhat ROI can investors expect?

Currently, investors can earn up to 7% p.a. fixed, and there are no fees withheld. The number will be going up though, as we will be adding other types of loans with higher levels of interest.

Prestamos Prima, the mother company of Viventor, operates in Spain? What led to the decision to incorporate Viventor SIA in Latvia?

We as professionals have been in the non-bank lending for many years, involved in other projects before Prestamos Prima. While Spain is one of the major markets at the moment, it is certainly not the only one, and you can expect loans from other European countries being added.

What concerns Viventor being incorporated in Latvia – we are Latvians, and prefer to stick to our origins whenever we are able to choose. There is a lot of untapped potential and hidden talent in the Baltics, but then again – I believe people familiar with the European peer-to-peer financing market are well aware of that already.

Is the technical platform self-developed?

Yes, Viventor has been built in-house from the very first line of code, and we will keep the development of platform to ourselves. All in all, we believe the right approach for improving Viventor is by gathering feedback, applying our lessons learnt, constantly pivoting and optimising. And it is clearly much more efficient to achieve this with a dedicated engineering team in-house. Continue reading →

Interview with Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya, Founders of Funding Societies

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What is Funding Societies about?

Funding Societies is a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending marketplace for small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to get loans to grow and investors to get good returns in Singapore. We pride ourselves on innovation, as the first and only platform in the region to implement escrow service, e-contracting, webinar, internet chat and more. Since our launch in Jun, we have crowdfunded ~3M SGD (approx. 2M EUR) in loans to 35 SMEs with 100% repayment. We aspire to be the most trusted P2P lending marketplace in Southeast Asia.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

As investors ourselves, we believe returns, convenience and security are critical. Therefore we offer an alternative investment that gives investors a much better return than traditional fixed income, through the convenience of a fully-online and hassle-free investment approach, with funds handled by a professional escrow agency for security.

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

Having worked with many SMEs, we find their biggest constraints to be capital, time and energy. Therefore we strive to provide them with capital at competitive rates, fast speed-to-cash and best user experience with minimal effort.

Funding Societies FoundersWhat ROI can investors expect?

We target the SME segment structurally underserved by existing financial institutions. Our interest rates are just a few percent higher than banks’, to minimize adverse selection. We charge 9% to 14% simple interest and pass the full return to investors with only 1% service fee. With diversification, we believe investors can earn at least 7%, much better than deposit interest of 0.05% in Singapore.

How is your company funded?

We began by bootstrapping. Thanks to a talented and committed team, we achieved numerous awards within the first 6 months and received considerable attention from the investor community, including strategic VCs who share the same values with us and now fund us.

 Is the technical platform self-developed?

Yes, we built everything from scratch based on best practices we observed. It took us 95 days from start to launch, thanks to our talented CTO Felix Richard. Our goal is to deliver the best user experience, while ensuring security and scalability. Continue reading →

Interview with Sebastian Harung, Founder of Kameo

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What is Kameo about?

Kameo is a Scandinavian marketplace for SME loans. It was established to meet two clear challenges in the Scandinavian markets: SMEs do not get loans; investors do not get good returns. By directly connecting them, we hope to make the situation better for both. Kameo’s vision is to include more people in the financial markets.

Note from editor: Kameo will launch around next week.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

  • Better expected returns
  • Support SMEs, the most important employer in Scandinavia
  • Possibility to create diversified portfolios

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

  • Access to (more) funding
  • Quick and easy loan application
  • Flexible security & collateral structures

Sebastian Harung, KameoWhat ROI can investors expect?

Loans will be offered at 5 – 15 % per annum. At first, there will be no fees for investing through Kameo. We expect low default rates, based on historical data for Scandinavia and our thorough credit assessment. We can conservatively assume it to be around 1 – 3 % (naturally dependent on risk profile).

What is the background of the Kameo team? As some of you are Norwegian, why did you select the Swedish market for launch rather than Norway?

The team currently consists of five persons, of which only I am Norwegian. We have various backgrounds, but the same optimistic view of the future: alternative finance will transform Scandinavian banking, and it will become better for more people – it is the social democracy model, of which we Scandinavians are so proud.

We have a credit analyst with 20 years of SME analysis experience, a CTO that previously co-founded Avanza and developed its platform (Sweden’s largest net broker) as well as a marketing specialist and a business developer with backgrounds from digital marketing and corporate finance, respectively. My background is also from corporate finance at Norway’s largest bank, DNB.

And because we expect to grow, we will be looking to further strengthen the team next year.

While the largest owners are Norwegians, we chose to start in Sweden because the market is larger, it is a well-developed fintech-hub (#2 in Europe after London), and Kameo’s largest owner has a successful startup history in Sweden. In addition, the regulatory regime was easier when we started working with the idea (but this has since changed). We have, though, a clear ambition to cover Norway and Denmark next year, thus creating a Scandinavian marketplace (investors can create portfolios of Scandinavian loans.)

How is the company financed?

Two rounds of equity investments from co-founders, board members and angel investors. And I have sold my apartment and invested everything (except what I intend to lend through the platform in order to fund my daughter’s driver’s license in 16 years).

We will also be looking to raise more capital sometime next year, when we roll out in Norway and Denmark. Continue reading →

Interview with Sergio Antón, Co-Founder of MytripleA

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What is MytripleA about?

MytripleA is the first and only fully regulated platform operating in the Spanish market. MytripleA is a Spanish business finance platform meeting both short-term and medium-term financing needs of Spanish SMEs. MytripleA offers two different products: 1) insurance guaranteed loans -for more conservative investors- and non guaranteed loans -with higher risk and higher return- and 2) invoice financing.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

We offer an excellent risk-adjusted return to investors with a very robust underwriting process. Our investors receive monthly payments (except for invoice investments). In addition, we offer insurance loans (with close to zero risk) to more conservative investors. The abovementioned advantages and being the only fully regulated lending platform in Spain have allowed us to have a stable and growing investor base.

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

Fast response to applicants. We are very flexible to adapt our financing to the borrower’ needs. In addition, our financing leaves no records in the Bank of Spain’s debt data base which makes it much more attractive than banking debt.

Sergio Anton, MytripleAWhat ROI can investors expect?

Our ROI in currently 8.30% with zero default rate.

How did you start MytripleA? Is the company funded with venture capital?

My cofounder and I noted that there are thousands of solvent SMEs ignored by the banks and decided to connect personal savings with solvent companies by using technology. We checked the regulatory issues and launched the company once we had obtained the necessary approvals. The company was initially funded by the founders and then we did our first round with GLI Finance and other private investors.

How valuable is it to have an experienced investor like GLI Finance? Can you please give examples how they help you in your business development?

GLI is the expert in the alternative finance sector for SMEs worldwide and is a key shareholder for MytripleA. They are supporting us in areas such us strategy, business development and the security of our platform. In addition, they also provide lending capacity for MytripleA. We are extremely happy to have them on-board. Continue reading →

Interview with Vytautas Zabulis, CEO and Co-Founder of Savy

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What is SAVY about?

We have created what is best defined by the term “bank”. But our bank is virtual; it differs from a traditional one in that it is exempt from the requirement of capital sufficiency. Borrowers apply for loans and investors grant loans on our platform; it’s a meeting place.

In short, the SAVY P2P lending platform is a virtual bank that (will) operate in three segments:

  • Consumer credits, that is, personal loans;
  • Loans with real estate mortgage (for persons and businesses);
  • Business loans.

We have not yet offered business loans; however, we are planning to offer the service by the end of 2016. Our real estate product will be fully launched by the end of this year. Our secondary market appeared in early 2015.

A standard practice of global P2P lending platforms is that investors transfer funds to an account owned by the platform managers and the latter do the lending. We took a different path. The SAVY interpersonal borrowing platform does not manage the funds of investors directly. Each investor creates their own “personal wallet” in the Paysera e-money institution. They are then entitled to use their funds at their own discretion; for example, they can take their money out as soon as they need it without any intervention from SAVY.
Even theoretical risks for investors’ money are eliminated under this structure. The platform reserves the right to evaluate the creditability of borrowers and allocate investors’ money to the borrowers. Other risks, such as funds being used for other purposes than intended by investors, are simply impossible on our platform.
Paysera is an e-money institution. Investors can be confident as Paysera has 10 years of experience as an e-money license holder in the European Union. Its business in Lithuania is supervised by the Bank of Lithuania.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

  • Safe storage of money. The platform does not manage any investor funds. The funds are kept in dedicated e-accounts of each individual investor. In addition, investors are not charged a fee for investing their capital on the platform.
  • Experienced team. All members of our team and management are experts in their respective fields of business. This is very important in this new, dynamic industry.
  • Possibility to diversify risks. Traditional platforms offer only a single product for their investors. SAVY (will) offer the ability to invest across three different sectors and risk types on one intuitive system.

What are the three main advantages of SAVY platform for borrowers?

  • The SAVY platform is a new alternative for borrowers, something that has never before existed in Lithuania. This is a speedy and cost effective solution compared to expensive payday companies, banks and credit unions.
  • Our platform offers borrowing costs at a price similar to bank credit cards or even cheaper.
  • We guarantee a quick loan. Furthermore, we do not impose any fees on early repayment.

Vytautas ZabulisWhat ROI can investors expect?

Currently, the average return on investment is over 20 percent. Generally, our investors should plan a net return somewhere between 15 and 20 percent for the unsecured product loans. For the secured loan products such as real estate and business loans, they can expect slightly less. The expected return on investment for foreign investors on platforms from Central and Eastern Europe is, generally, much higher than the same metric found on Western European platforms.

What is the background of the SAVY team?

Our team is a collaboration of industry professionals, which is crucial to create an innovative and effective product in the financial sector. For example, our marketing manager is the former general manager of one of the largest Lithuanian consumer credit institutions. We have an internal lawyer with an MA degree in Law from a prestigious university in the UK, who is also a former employee of a private capital fund there. We have a banking professional on our board, well known in the Baltic region, and former CEO of SEB and Å iauliu Bank in Lithuania. An American professional in commercial real estate development is also on our team. […] Continue reading →

Interview with Alejandro Cosentino, CEO of Afluenta

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What is Afluenta about?

Afluenta is a leading marketplace lending company in Latin America (LatAm) who connects creditworthy borrowers with investors, to create more convenient loans and better investment opportunities. Our advanced technology provides an innovative investment alternative for individuals and institutions lenders interested in getting better yields through investing in consumer loans without the traditional middleman.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

There are not many alternatives for investors across LatAm emerging markets. We believe that Afluenta is a truly new alternative with a potential high net yield and low volatility but being specific Afluenta provides:

  1. Better yields compared with traditional banking products since Afluenta removes banks, as intermediary, and allows to distribute the traditional banking spread between borrowers and lenders.
  2. It’s simple, secure and easy to understand and operate.
  3. There are many features on the platform to facilitate the use and trading fractional loans such as the Secondary Market which allow lenders to have liquidity.

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

Although, compared with investment alternatives, there are plenty of choices to get a loan in our region, those alternatives are not cheaper, convenient or hassle free for borrowers so we designed a better loan processes and conditions to provide:

  1. Access to cheaper loans than those they can get in the traditional financial institutions
  2. Get loans faster. Applicants get a response about the loan admission in 20 seconds and the loan is funded in approximately 3 days so they get the money much faster.
  3. The entire process is hassle free. Potential borrowers just complete a short application and not are requested to provide physical information. 100% of the process is online.

Alejandro Cosentino, AfluentaWhat ROI can investors expect?

The net yield that investors can expect is, swapped in US dollars, an average of 21.5%. The loans are provided in local currency and always will be in local currencies no matter the country we will be operating in.

How did you start Afluenta? Is the company funded with venture capital?

Afluenta was born in 2010 but for many years I had it in mind since I had a great experience in financial services obtained running American Express in LatAm as well as in Santander in Argentina and worked in Tech industry also in LatAm. In 2011 we fund raised from an angel investor to develop our technological development and then we got the approval from the Argentinean National Securities Commission to launch our operation initially in Argentina in September 2012. Since then we have grown to a large number of loans people to people

Afluenta was initially funded with my savings, then we got two fund raising rounds, Angel one and Series A (both of them Argentinean investors). We are about to close our Series B with US VCs and international institutional investors to support the regional expansion process.

What were the main milestones since your launch in 2012?

We set the rules for this industry in Latin American region. We operate as Lending Club or Prosper do their business in US. Afluenta is the first authorized P2P marketplace in the region. We solved the regulatory and tax issues initially in Argentina and then in Peru using current legislation allowing us to run a marketplace lender without asking for new laws or changing current regulations. On the other side, our technology is world class and Afluenta developed innovative features for lenders to operate simple, faster and profitable such as secondary market, automate investing, CRM of collections among other and add 100% transparency of all the data in the investment platform. Continue reading →