Isepankur Adds Slovakian Loans Starting Monday

P2P lending service Isepankur will open to borrowers in Slovakia starting next Monday. While Isepankur is open for lenders from all over Europe this is the fourth borrower market after Estonia, Finland and Spain. I contacted CEO Pärtel Tomberg and he told me:

Slovakia is a small market with a very strong potential. We have already gathered a great deal of in small markets Estonia, a market roughly 20% the size of Slovakia, and in Finland, same size as Slovakia in terms of population, and will be looking to translate this into a successful launch. The market is quite similar to the markets mentioned earlier with a small number of large banks and lack of alternative offers to the consumers. There is a general lack of affordable and easy-to-use credit products and we will be looking to fill that void with our offer that will be very similar to what we have in Estonia, Finland and Spain. Our target would be to generate approximately 4 million euro of monthly loan volume in Slovakia in the matter of 2-3 years however as always we will start small and conservatively to ensure that only quality loans are offered to the investors.

To apply for a p2p loan the minimum income criteria borrowers from Slovakia have to fulfill are listed in the investment guide. They are roughly the same as for the Estonian borrowers. Continue reading

My P2P Lending Portfolio at Isepankur 12/2013 & Isepankur to add Slovakia

It’s been 14 months now since I started a p2p lending portfolio at Isepankur. I feel confident now, that I understand fairly well how to get above average results. During the first months I usually logged in at least daily and watched bidding patterns and resale activity to learn how the other lenders made use of the instruments. I also did a lot of micromanagement at that time. Lately I think I could satisfy my information thirst by logging in once or twice a week. Some of my automated bidding profiles have been running unchanged for weeks or months. I do still spend a big amount of time on p2p lending related news & forums (but not limited to Isepankur).

I have deposited 10,000 Euro (approx. 13,500 US$) since starting in the end of 2012. I hold over 600 loan parts – the diversification achieved is very good. Together the loans add up to 11,399 Euro outstanding principal. Loans in the value of 347 Euro are overdue, meaning they (partly) missed one or two repayments. 208 Euro are in loans that are more than 60 days late. I already received 3,559 Euro in repaid principal back (which I reinvested).

Chart 1: Screenshot of loan status

Right now I have 290 Euro cash in the account which is much more than my usual cash position. 165 Euro are tied in bids on current loan listings and will originate in the next few days.


Chart 2: Screenshot of account balance

Return on Invest

Currently Isepankur shows my ROI to be over 27% (see chart 3 ). In my own calculations, using XIRR in Excel, I currently get a 24.4% ROI. In the first months there was a considerable gap when comparing these differently calculated ROI figures. As my portfolio ages, the gap is closing. The statistic section tells me, that I am currently the lender with the 5th best ROI (counting all lenders that have invested for at least 12 months and at least 10,000 Euro).

Continue reading