LinkedFinance - new website

at9qu5vp0wcix7

I have 2 Latvian loans in my portfolio - both are late. I believe the higher default rate is reflected in the higher interest rates offered on Latvian loans - generally 13.5%, compared with 12.5% on Georgian loans etc.

scheister

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

Hope it has the buyback guarantee. If you do get a late payment, usually it is higher than the original anticipated payment.

so far my 5 loans are all on buyback guarantee. Did not notice the stats but looking at it and this is a Latvian loans 80% are current and 10% are 1-15 days late so hopefully payment will come in soon

spudwould

scheister wrote: »

so far my 5 loans are all on buyback guarantee. Did not notice the stats but looking at it and this is a Latvian loans 80% are current and 10% are 1-15 days late so hopefully payment will come in soon

I have been lending on Mintos for the last 7 to 8 months ... and I have had late payments and 2 defaults.
However you got the full amount paid back and on most I received the interest aswell.
It is better than any defaults on Linked Finance ... so far 1 repayment which LF said they will keep in their accounts as it was not enough to pay a months repayments to all investors. The others no repayments at all.
So for 3 defaults I have received NIL in repayments.

Also the ratio of investors to to businesses looking for loans is too high on LF and the terms of the loans are now being driven right down .... so I am a Mintos man from now on!

spudwould

strettie wrote: »

Linked Finance were included in the Sunday Business Post Hot 100 Irish start ups list. Thought you might be interested in hearing the following from the profile

Peter O'Mahony said that at the moment there were " zero defaults and zero arrears" on Linked Finance, adding " all our loans are bang up to date".
O'Mahony said that there were systems in place to protect the lender if businesses do default in the future.

Everyone here should set Tom Lyons the Sunday Business Post Business editor straight @TomLyonsBiz on twitter

Tweeted

spudwould

spudwould wrote: »

Tweeted

Checked and that post was from 14th April 2015
*Note to self .. do a little investigative work before tweeting :P

strettie

spudwould wrote: »

Checked and that post was from 14th April 2015
*Note to self .. do a little investigative work before tweeting :P

Hi spudworld confused by your last post which post is from April 2015

spudwould

strettie wrote: »

Hi spudworld confused by your last post which post is from April 2015

Peter O'Mahony said that at the moment there were " zero defaults and zero arrears" on Linked Finance, adding " all our loans are bang up to date"

The above quote.. maybe he is repeating what he said last year .. as we both know it is old news as there are plenty of late payments and defaulters. :P

sceach16

spudwould wrote: »

Checked and that post was from 14th April 2015
*Note to self .. do a little investigative work before tweeting :P

Quote was published last Sunday (10 April) in a current feature. Did the feature say that there were bad loans since the quote (April 2015)or did it say no bad loans at all.

Reading recent posts , there are several bad loans......... The question is did the SBP report this?

strettie

Unfortunately Sunday business post published this yesterday without any context that quote may be an old quote. Your tweet is not irrelevant spudworld lazy journalism also needs to be called out. :-)

Anyway an update The business post main twitter account replied to me and asked for details of issues with Linked Finance profile. I detailed the 5 defaults I knew of and the late payment I have experienced and linked them to this discussion group for details of other defaults and late payments posted here. They said they would refer to editor and journalist responsible.

JTMan

Water John wrote: »

I see a crowd called Orca Money who say they provide P2P analysis.
Is this any help in comparing different providers?

Orca Money seems to compare UK GBP providers rather than EUR P2P providers. Hence, it is of little use to an Irish investor.

gordongekko

sceach16 wrote: »

This loan closed on 24 March.Today (11 April) , my bid was returned with no interest. Not good enough.

Probably a total of .00000000001 cent due.

Smiler1955

spudwould wrote: »

I have been lending on Mintos for the last 7 to 8 months ... and I have had late payments and 2 defaults.
However you got the full amount paid back and on most I received the interest aswell.
It is better than any defaults on Linked Finance ... so far 1 repayment which LF said they will keep in their accounts as it was not enough to pay a months repayments to all investors. The others no repayments at all.
So for 3 defaults I have received NIL in repayments.

Also the ratio of investors to to businesses looking for loans is too high on LF and the terms of the loans are now being driven right down .... so I am a Mintos man from now on!

I thought this was a Linked Finance forum, do you work for Mintos or something?

sceach16

sceach16 wrote: »

This loan closed on 24 March.Today (11 April) , my bid was returned with no interest. Not good enough.

Got this response from Linked


"Thanks for the email. What happened here was the loan was for a specific piece of equipment and basically the deal fell through for the borrower ,so they wanted to return the funds to us. It is just one of these things that is outside of our control. As you know this actually costs us a lot in terms of both time and income as Linked Finance only gets paid when the loan is accepted and loan documents fully signed and set up.


It is a rare occurrence and it obviously suits nobody."

I'm satisfied with this.

tomwaits48

Smiler1955 wrote: »

I thought this was a Linked Finance forum, do you work for Mintos or something?

no harm in discussing other P2P platforms.

Wheety

Linked Finance seems to have a huge number of investors now. I just had a bid rejected 12% at the last minute. Was plenty of people after me in the list. Just seems to be so many coming in and bidding at 7-8% now. I don't want to go anywhere near that rate as it's not worth it. Even 12 is low for me but I had the money there so went for it.

The next 4 loans are already fully funded so the rate will just drop on these over the next few days.

Have opened an account on Mintos but haven't deposited money yet.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

Wheety wrote: »

Linked Finance seems to have a huge number of investors now. I just had a bid rejected 12% at the last minute. Was plenty of people after me in the list. Just seems to be so many coming in and bidding at 7-8% now. I don't want to go anywhere near that rate as it's not worth it. Even 12 is low for me but I had the money there so went for it.

The next 4 loans are already fully funded so the rate will just drop on these over the next few days.

Have opened an account on Mintos but haven't deposited money yet.

Putting money in at 7-8% when it isn't guaranteed is mad - especially when you can put money into buy-back guaranteed loans at 12.5% on other platforms. Great for Irish businesses though, and I know many investors seem to care as much about helping businesses grow as their own annual growth rate.

tadcan

The number of investors and competition can go up and down, reducing the turn around time to reinvest when trying to get a higher rate. It could die down again in the summer.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

tadcan wrote: »

The number of investors and competition can go up and down, reducing the turn around time to reinvest when trying to get a higher rate. It could die down again in the summer.

I'm going to cool off my investing for now. Current CAGR is estimated to be ~ 7% (without factoring in the 1.2% fee), but that number will only decrease if I put in low bids to get into current loans.

The Notorious B.I.G.

Can anyone explain why so many bids (often of large enough amounts) seem to be made at very low rates (7-8%)? I accept that some bids are from friends of the business in question but I have never seen a loan where say a 10% bid was rejected. Surely investors are savvy enough to know they don't generally need to make such low bids to have them accepted?

Wheety

The Notorious B.I.G. wrote: »

Can anyone explain why so many bids (often of large enough amounts) seem to be made at very low rates (7-8%)? I accept that some bids are from friends of the business in question but I have never seen a loan where say a 10% bid was rejected. Surely investors are savvy enough to know they don't generally need to make such low bids to have them accepted?

Maybe it's new investors? I lent €200 to Burdocks at 8% as my first loan as I didn't realise you can generally get much better.

sceach16

The Notorious B.I.G. wrote: »

Can anyone explain why so many bids (often of large enough amounts) seem to be made at very low rates (7-8%)? I accept that some bids are from friends of the business in question but I have never seen a loan where say a 10% bid was rejected. Surely investors are savvy enough to know they don't generally need to make such low bids to have them accepted?

Yes ! I can. People bid what they want when they want ! More seriously, the decision to invest is entirely personal for personal reasons."Investors" like a good rate, others like to support a loan because its local, organic, craft beer etc. There is also the "helping" approach where a low rate is acceptable to lenders. I am an "investor" so like good rates and am happy so far....

at9qu5vp0wcix7

The Notorious B.I.G. wrote: »

Can anyone explain why so many bids (often of large enough amounts) seem to be made at very low rates (7-8%)? I accept that some bids are from friends of the business in question but I have never seen a loan where say a 10% bid was rejected. Surely investors are savvy enough to know they don't generally need to make such low bids to have them accepted?

The default rate is 8%... since there is no confirmation/review, I have had a bid go through at 8% when bidding from my mobile! I have actually seen this mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Obviously this isn't the only source of low bids, but certainly some of them.

sceach16

Wheety wrote: »

Maybe it's new investors? I lent €200 to Burdocks at 8% as my first loan as I didn't realise you can generally get much better.

Not to Burdocks but so did I to my first few! I now start close to 15%.

Wheety

I bid €50 recently at 8% as I clicked to enter a bid, then tried to go back by pressing the backspace button but hit enter by mistake :mad:

I think people join LinkedFinance and then think "Oh, look 8% interest rate. That's better than my bank". Not realising that the capital is reducing all the time and it's not like a savings account.

The Notorious B.I.G.

Wheety wrote: »

I bid €50 recently at 8% as I clicked to enter a bid, then tried to go back by pressing the backspace button but hit enter by mistake :mad:

I think people join LinkedFinance and then think "Oh, look 8% interest rate. That's better than my bank". Not realising that the capital is reducing all the time and it's not like a savings account.

Good points. A combination of inexperienced investors and over sensitive mobile phones could be behind it!

Yurple

I have about 6 successful bids in so far but sadly one recently just pulled out but got my money back... no payments from others yet as I am new. SolarCraft has a wrong pay due date in my account... very strange.

Everyone here talks about mintos. I looked at the website and looks very intimidating - I am unsure where to start (besides opening an account and sending money of course)

Can anybody provide any tips or steps how to get started?

I dont understand how some loans are already ongoing and you can invest?

Other loans are personal loans of like 300 paying back in 7 days and the total interest is 1 euro 20 cent or something? Why would anyone invest for a total profit of 1.20 ? I do not understand.


Any tips greatly appreciated!

sceach16

Wheety wrote: »

I bid €50 recently at 8% as I clicked to enter a bid, then tried to go back by pressing the backspace button but hit enter by mistake :mad:

I think people join LinkedFinance and then think "Oh, look 8% interest rate. That's better than my bank". Not realising that the capital is reducing all the time and it's not like a savings account.

Extract from email with Linked

"For my tuppence, ye should remove both the 50euro and the 8%. I am aware ye have had other complaints about this including a suggestion that a confirm bid process/box be introduced. This would be a better solution and something that in the longer run is needed.

Can I suggest that ye might consider a users forum at the meeting as well!"

Linked are in the (slow) process of removing the 8%. If Ye keep the pressure up , they will react. also email them for a users forum, Please!!!

at9qu5vp0wcix7

sceach16 wrote: »

Extract from email with Linked

"For my tuppence, ye should remove both the 50euro and the 8%. I am aware ye have had other complaints about this including a suggestion that a confirm bid process/box be introduced. This would be a better solution and something that in the longer run is needed.

Can I suggest that ye might consider a users forum at the meeting as well!"

Linked are in the (slow) process of removing the 8%. If Ye keep the pressure up , they will react. also email them for a users forum, Please!!!

I had the following reply about a month ago:

I have made our technical team aware of this issue and I have requested that the display rate of 8% is removed from the bidding section as soon as possible.

I will work to ensure that this issue does not occur in the future.

My sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

If you need any information or assistance in the future, please feel free to contact me directly.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

Yurple wrote: »

I have about 6 successful bids in so far but sadly one recently just pulled out but got my money back... no payments from others yet as I am new. SolarCraft has a wrong pay due date in my account... very strange.

Everyone here talks about mintos. I looked at the website and looks very intimidating - I am unsure where to start (besides opening an account and sending money of course)

Can anybody provide any tips or steps how to get started?

I dont understand how some loans are already ongoing and you can invest?

Other loans are personal loans of like 300 paying back in 7 days and the total interest is 1 euro 20 cent or something? Why would anyone invest for a total profit of 1.20 ? I do not understand.


Any tips greatly appreciated!

Mintos is intimidating at first, especially compared to Linked Finance, but it is easy to get used to it. For simplicity, stick to the Primary Market at the start. In the filter options, look for loans which have the 'Buyback Guarantee' if you want that added security.

Many of the loans on there are already in progress - something which took me a while to get my head around. Most of the long term loans such as secured car loans and mortgages.

At the moment, I invest mostly in short term loans (29 day usually) @12.5% interest. By reinvesting the money as soon as it is repaid, my annual growth rate from this strategy should be about 13%.

The example you gave of €300 paying a profit of €1.20 after a week, well imagine reinvesting that every week for a year, the annual returns on that would be very good!

newacc2015

The Notorious B.I.G. wrote: »

Can anyone explain why so many bids (often of large enough amounts) seem to be made at very low rates (7-8%)? I accept that some bids are from friends of the business in question but I have never seen a loan where say a 10% bid was rejected. Surely investors are savvy enough to know they don't generally need to make such low bids to have them accepted?

IMO I think it is done to the fact the businesses sell themselves on the site. You see their product, their life story and their visions for the future. Some people want to see them succeed and are happy to lend them money at 6%, even though you would could probably get 12-14% from the same business. It is like people buying local produce, even though it is more expensive and a lesser quality than a mass produced brand

Where as the same individual might not think twice about getting 15% interest on a loan on Mintos from some non-descript business in Eastern Europe. They dont know any more about the person other than their business industry and their loan amount. It is so impersonal, than they dont mind demanding 15% off them.

Look at Irish CUs and American CUs. You can get car loans from CUs in America with 2% interest. Car loans from your local CU can be 12% here. But Irish CUs market themselves as being for the community etc and therefore no questions why their car loans are such a rip off (it is not a shortage of funds, as they have €5bn doing nothing). If some thing is marketed right, Irish people will accept less than favourable conditions.

JTMan

Does anyone have a winning Mintos strategy?

Why creating your robotic auto invest criteria, what criteria are you using?
- Are you going with all 5 countries? or excluding any?
- Are you going with all 10 loan originators? or excluding any?
- Are you going with all 5 loan types? or excluding any?
- Are you bothering with buyback guarantee?
- What minimum loan rate are you setting?

lcwill

JTMan wrote: »

Does anyone have a winning Mintos strategy?

Why creating your robotic auto invest criteria, what criteria are you using?
- Are you going with all 5 countries? or excluding any?
- Are you going with all 10 loan originators? or excluding any?
- Are you going with all 5 loan types? or excluding any?
- Are you bothering with buyback guarantee?
- What minimum loan rate are you setting?

I have split my Mintos portfolio into two sections by setting up two autobids - one for 75% of my portfolio which focuses on loans with buy back guarantee, interest of 10-15%, max investment per loan of E10, max LTV of 70%, current mortgages, car loans and business loans, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The other 25% is for loans without a guarantee but interest between 12-15% and all other criteria are the same.

I also occasionally invest in invoice financing, and pick up pieces of older guaranteed loans with higher interest rates on the secondary market if they are selling with a discount or no premium.

I set these up a while ago before a lot of the new originators joined and new countries became available and chose criteria based on a couple of hours playing with Mintos data to work out which criteria were correlated with higher default risk (no fancy modeling just playing with pivot tables as my skills in this area are weak).

So far I have a return of 10.98% and about 85% of loans are current and 15% with some delay but nothing over 60days. A few delays are ok and you are compensated with late payment fees.

My 70% LTV criteria slows things down a bit but higher LTV have higher default rates and I imagine recovery is lower too.

I am aiming for 10% return before taxes because the higher liquidity and transparency makes the whole thing less risky than LF where I am going for 13-14%.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

lcwill wrote: »

I have split my Mintos portfolio into two sections by setting up two autobids - one for 75% of my portfolio which focuses on loans with buy back guarantee, interest of 10-15%, max investment per loan of E10, max LTV of 70%, current mortgages, car loans and business loans, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The other 25% is for loans without a guarantee but interest between 12-15% and all other criteria are the same.

I also occasionally invest in invoice financing, and pick up pieces of older guaranteed loans with higher interest rates on the secondary market if they are selling with a discount or no premium.

I set these up a while ago before a lot of the new originators joined and new countries became available and chose criteria based on a couple of hours playing with Mintos data to work out which criteria were correlated with higher default risk (no fancy modeling just playing with pivot tables as my skills in this area are weak).

So far I have a return of 10.98% and about 85% of loans are current and 15% with some delay but nothing over 60days. A few delays are ok and you are compensated with late payment fees.

My 70% LTV criteria slows things down a bit but higher LTV have higher default rates and I imagine recovery is lower too.

I am aiming for 10% return before taxes because the higher liquidity and transparency makes the whole thing less risky than LF where I am going for 13-14%.

Surely a 13-14% return on LF is out of the question given the interest rates and loan term? (36 months). Interesting strategy however, I like how Mintos let you download their loan data into Excel to make your own decisions.

lcwill

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

Surely a 13-14% return on LF is out of the question given the interest rates and loan term? (36 months). Interesting strategy however, I like how Mintos let you download their loan data into Excel to make your own decisions.

The transparency with the data is so valuable and really helps make decisions.

This issue with interest rates on LF is a common topic of discussion here!

The rate you get is the average for the total outstanding portfolio (total lent minus repayments). You have to keep relending your repayments and you will get your 13-14% per year on the whole portfolio.

Don't think about the return on individual loans over the entire loan term as the interest is paid on the outstanding capital so it declines as you get repaid. I think this is normal elsewhere too.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

There is a glitch with the Betcon loan right now - showing €35k of funding being live, despite it being a €25k loan. Beware if you think you're getting a good interest rate etc.

sceach16

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

There is a glitch with the Betcon loan right now - showing €35k of funding being live, despite it being a €25k loan. Beware if you think you're getting a good interest rate etc.

It is showing 25k. Did U tot live loans ? I am missing something!

at9qu5vp0wcix7

sceach16 wrote: »

It is showing 25k. Did U tot live loans ? I am missing something!

I put the data into excel since it didn't look right to me - and got €34760 being live.

Cute Hoor

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

There is a glitch with the Betcon loan right now - showing €35k of funding being live, despite it being a €25k loan. Beware if you think you're getting a good interest rate etc.

Well spotted, this is very poor form on LF's part, will be interesting to see if they get the problem resolved before loan closes

sceach16

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

I put the data into excel since it didn't look right to me - and got €34760 being live.

It is stuck.....accepting bids. I bid 50 twice at 13.9. accepted but the bid which shd have been knocked out....Mursal....was not.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

sceach16 wrote: »

It is stuck.....accepting bids. I bid 50 twice at 13.9. accepted but the bid which shd have been knocked out....Mursal....was not.

You would need a bid of 13.1 to get in on the loan right now. I emailed them a while back, hopefully they notice.

sceach16

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

You would need a bid of 13.1 to get in on the loan right now. I emailed them a while back, hopefully they notice.

How much was finally accepted?

at9qu5vp0wcix7

sceach16 wrote: »

How much was finally accepted?

12.9% definitely, and about half of the 13.0% bids.

Squall Leonhart

LinkedFinance seems to take a long time to invest a relatively small amount of money in. I joined in mid-March and deposited 500, so far I've only offloaded 200, with a further 100 still floating in the ether on closed bids. I go with 50eur loans.

On the flip side, I joined Mintos a week ago, deposited 100eur (showed up in account 3 days later) and put out 10 x 10eur loans on the first day.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

LinkedFinance seems to take a long time to invest a relatively small amount of money in. I joined in mid-March and deposited 500, so far I've only offloaded 200, with a further 100 still floating in the ether on closed bids. I go with 50eur loans.

On the flip side, I joined Mintos a week ago, deposited 100eur (showed up in account 3 days later) and put out 10 x 10eur loans on the first day.

Only managed to get €500 invested 5 weeks myself.

The deposit times for Linked Finance are a big advantage. You can instantly deposit money using a card. Mintos can be anywhere from overnight to 3-4 days.


Edit: The Betcon loan has been sorted out now, bids incorrectly listed as live have been refunded.

m320325

Just wondering if other lenders agree with me on this

If a loan is fully funded (above 100%), I BELIEVE it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to increase the average interest rate on a loan if I place a bid

(Remember if the current live rate is 14.6 then I must bid 14.5 or less)

Linkedfinance emailed me saying borrowers complained that my bidding tactics were increasing loan rates

"there is strategic bidding on your part, with the intention to keep interest rates as high as possible as the auctions near their close."

I believe Linkedfinance should be encouraging more bids as this actually reduces the interest rate for borrowers. They should explain this to the borrower instead of emailing me. I replied and told thrm it's impossible to increase the average interest rate, but they didn't admit they were wrong.

at9qu5vp0wcix7

m320325 wrote: »

Just wondering if other lenders agree with me on this

If a loan is fully funded (above 100%), I BELIEVE it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to increase the average interest rate on a loan if I place a bid

(Remember if the current live rate is 14.6 then I must bid 14.5 or less)

Linkedfinance (James) emailed me saying borrowers complained that my bidding tactics were increasing loan rates

"there is strategic bidding on your part, with the intention to keep interest rates as high as possible as the auctions near their close."

I believe Linkedfinance should be encouraging more bids as this actually reduces the interest rate for borrowers. They should explain this to the borrower instead of emailing me. I replied to James and told him it's impossible to increase the average interest rate, but he didn't admit he was wrong.

The only way I see this being possible is if you place huge chunks of €1000-€2000 on at 0.1% below the max live bid. It would take a significant amount of €50 chunks at lower interest rates for this to be rejected.

Was the email some form of citation?

sceach16

m320325 wrote: »

Just wondering if other lenders agree with me on this

If a loan is fully funded (above 100%), I BELIEVE it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to increase the average interest rate on a loan if I place a bid

(Remember if the current live rate is 14.6 then I must bid 14.5 or less)

Linkedfinance emailed me saying borrowers complained that my bidding tactics were increasing loan rates

"there is strategic bidding on your part, with the intention to keep interest rates as high as possible as the auctions near their close."

I believe Linkedfinance should be encouraging more bids as this actually reduces the interest rate for borrowers. They should explain this to the borrower instead of emailing me. I replied and told thrm it's impossible to increase the average interest rate, but they didn't admit they were wrong.

I try and get as high a rate as practical. I am a lender looking after myself. Maybe Linked could start a forum for lenders...

m320325

Mila Calm Ax wrote: »

The only way I see this being possible is if you place huge chunks of €1000-€2000 on at 0.1% below the max live bid. It would take a significant amount of €50 chunks at lower interest rates for this to be rejected.

Was the email some form of citation?

How so?

If it takes a significant number of 50s to remove the 2000 then I must have removed a significant number of 50s above my rate, which reduces the rate

I've lent Euro2,000 to many businesses in the past, but I'm no longer lending until they admit their mistake

m320325

sceach16 wrote: »

I try and get as high a rate as practical. I am a lender looking after myself. Maybe Linked could start a forum for lenders...

Yes I've suggested this and also removing the 8% default rate, but they are slow to do anything

at9qu5vp0wcix7

m320325 wrote: »

How so?

If it takes a significant number of 50s to remove the 2000 then I must have removed a significant number of 50s above my rate, which reduces the rate

I've lent 2,000 to many businesses in the past, but I've no longer lending

I am thinking you are right, although it is still confusing.

It is bizarre that they would take issue with you though. If their system allows this, then it is their own issue. It isn't a charity