15 months or so have passed by. What happened?
I invested in ten companies in the Netherlands, about 4500 Euros in total. I always pick short loans of one to three years. The company pays me back like a normal mortgage, that is, for example, 24 monthly instalments, always the same amount, including reimbursement and interest.
So far, I got 2000 Euros back and got about 200 Euros of interest. One loan is totally paid off, it was for a year only. The interest rate over all was about 7%.
One company apparently got into trouble in March and stopped paying, yet all has been resolved during the summer. Now one other company is 30 days late. We will see.
In the meantime, the original Dutch company that started as a branch of a German startup has enlisted a major investor ready to go for 250 million Euros. Soon after, they merged with a UK company, Funding Circle, who now offers a presence in GB,US,DE,NL and ES. Apparently there were some struggles inside linked to the take over and no projects were offered to normal investors during summer. I just continued to receive my ‘mortgage’ repayment every month. But by now, several projects are back on offer.
The Dutch regulator also required investors to answer a short questionnaire to show we are not stupid and submit their passport. Done today.
This will allow me to invest up to 5000 Euro’s per company and up to 80k in total (was 5000). Bit much, but the minimum is 100 Euros. We will see.
When asking, they said that soon I will be able to invest also in companies in the other countries mentioned above. That will be great!
What this shows is that crowdlending and other fintech activities are thriving. Money is flowing onto them. Traditional banks are starting to team up with such startups to learn and participate.
A 7% return is unbeatable on savings accounts. The risk is low if you make small investments in many companies who will not get a loan from the bank as it is too expensive to do all the investigations into creditworthiness that national regulators demand of them.
Got some Euro’s to spare?