Afranga review October 2022 – Great interest rates and reliability, insufficient loans supply

Afranga offers only consumer loans in Euro. They all yield interests monthly.

Interest rates on the platform used to be as high as 18%. They unfortunately decreased throughout 2021, ending up at 12%. However, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the overall demand for loans decreased, which drove interest rates upwards on most platforms. Afranga followed suit and increased rates to 14%.

Overall, this is a competitive level when taking into account the loan originator’s reliability :

• Robocash – which is part of a financially solid lending group – offers interest rates up to 13%.
• Interest rates at Lendermarket are higher – up to 16% -, but many investors are unsatisfied with the platform’s poor communication and lack of transparency.
• Esketit‘s loans from Jordan also offer 14% interest rates like Afranga does, but they’re not covered by a group guarantee. Other loans on the platform (from solid lending company CreamFinance) now all yield 12%.

Very short-term loans aren’t available. Indeed, loans terms currently range from six months to two years. Interestingly, StikCredit’s website mentions payday loans as one of their two main kinds of products, but it looks like they decided not to list them on Afranga.

It’s also worth noting that geographical diversification is non-existent, as StikCredit only operates on the Bulgarian market.

The minimal investment is €10, a very standard amount for P2P loans.

Initially, loans supply wasn’t a concern. However, the investors base has grown very quickly. As a result, for most of 2021 and 2022, the available loans list has been empty.

Indeed, although new loans are added to the platform daily, they are all bought either by auto-invest, or by speculators who immediately try to resell them for a premium on the secondary market (more on this bellow). It is thus nearly impossible to invest manually on the primary market, and even auto-invest struggles to invest more than once per week.

The platform has acknowledged the issue with the loans supply, but they obviously didn’t want to increase the loans volume at the expense of the portfolio’s quality. They managed to grow their portfolio size by 15% by December 2021, which was a first step towards a better liquidity.

It’s worth noting that although the primary market’s liquidity is poor, the secondary market usually has a large volume of loans for sale. As I’m updating this article in October 2022, there’s no loan available with a discount or sold at face value. However, premium start at only 0.1%, which will have little impact when buying long-term loans. Most of them are current or slightly late (1-15 days late).

In a rather standard way, the buyback guarantee provided by StikCredit covers both principal and accrued interests. It triggers after 60 days, which seems to have become the de-facto trigger delay. Indeed, only Robocash and Moncera use a shorter delay (30 days).

In terms of transparency and reliability, Afranga sets the bar very high. Indeed, StikCredit is regarded as a reliable originator, and the ties between Afranga and StikCredit are straightforward.

Afranga was founded in early 2021 by Bulgarian originator StikCredit. This is the continuation of a trend already observed in 2020. Other platforms related to a single lending group include :

The relationship between the platform and the originator isn’t always crystal-clear. For example, the only structural relationship between Lendermarket and CreditStar is that they have the same beneficial owner. Ties between Moncera and Placet Group also used to be rather loose. Indeed, the platform was started by two former employees but there was no formal link between the two entities until Placet Group bought the platform in late Summer 2021.

On the other hand, it’s straightforward to understand the link between Afranga and StikCredit. As stated in an interview with Afranga’s COO, they’re the same legal entity. Afranga’s name also appears in a very prominent way on in StikCredit’s most recent annual report :

In addition to the loan’s structure and repayment schedule, Afranga discloses basic information about the borrower.

Mintos investors will notice that this screen looks very similar to its equivalent at Mintos. It’s also the case for several other pages on the website.

I will never emphasize it enough : it’s critical for P2P investors to focus on loan originator’s reliability. Many originators on Mintos were of dubious quality, which causes sometimes large losses for investors. If the marketplace successfully recovered the whole capital invested in Aforti after long legal proceedings, the recovery rate for former originator E-cash was a pitiful 35%. In other words, investors lost two thirds of the invested amount !

Such a disaster is highly unlikely when it comes to StikCredit. Indeed, this lending group has been consistently profitable. Conveniently, StikCredit’s annual reports are available for download on Afranga‘s website.

Profit for fiscal year 2021 was 5.1 million BGN, which is roughly equivalent to 2.7 million euros. It’s a 10% increase compared to the 2020 figure.

Many competitors have their financial reports audited by a reputable audit firm. Placet Group’s report was audited by Ernst & Young, one of the “big four”. Robocash‘s annual report was conducted by FBK Grant Thornton, a slightly less renowned firm. When it comes to StikCredit, the audit was undertaken by an even smaller firm.

Investors who don’t want to analyze financial reports will appreciate the great work by ExploreP2P, which provides ratings for most loan originators. Their most recent rating for StikCredit is 65 out of 100. It’s definitively lower than the rating for Moncera‘s Placet Group (79) or Robocash (72) but comparable to many competitors such as Esketit, ViaInvest or Lendermarket which all have ratings between 63 and 67.

Unlike most competitors, Afranga doesn’t have a dedicated page for statistics such as funded volume or investors count. The only public figure was a post in April 2021, celebrating their first million in outstanding investments.

However, statistics for StikCredit’s portfolio are available. In addition, the funded volume provided by P2PMarketData reached thirty million euros. Because the platform has been operating for a short time, this figure is much lower than for basically all competitors.

Finally, even unregistered users can access the list of available loans.

As a recent platform, Afranga doesn’t have much track record. On the other hand, StikCredit has been operating since 2013 – and as I’ve already highlighted, is a profitable lending group -.

As noted earlier, because of the imbalance between the loans supply and demand at Afranga, there’s often no loan available to invest manually on the primary market. However, as many loans are listed on the secondary market, most investors will at some point resort to manually buy loans from other investors.

In terms of interface, buying on either primary or secondary market is very similar and the process is trivial. There’s a wide array of filters available :

• Loan’s interest rate and duration
• Listing date
• Available amount
• Loan status and type
• For the secondary market, discount and premium

In addition, it’s possible to exclude loans already invested in – which I recommend, in order to increase diversification -.

A minor annoyance is the unusual vertical layout of the filters. Most platforms list the label, minimum and maximum values in a row, not below one another.

I always recommend P2P investors to switch to automatic investing. Indeed, it will save time and reduce the probability of making mistakes.

It’s possible to have several strategies, although most investors probably won’t use this feature.

The available filters are similar to those for manual investing. In addition, it’s necessary to configure the portfolio’s size as well as the reinvestment option.

The number of matching loans is displayed, which is very handy.

As noted above, the demand for loans on the platform greatly exceeds the supply. As a result, cash drags are common. In order to reduce them, I set a maximal amount per loan much higher than on other platforms. Whereas I invest only €10 per loan on most competitors, I’ve increased this amount to € 100 on Afranga !

With the notable exception of Lendermarket, most competitors provide a way for investors to exit their loans early. For example, Robocash has a free secondary market, and Moncera provides a “One-click exit” feature, for a small fee (0.5%).

Afranga‘s secondary market was unveiled in September 2021. It brings some very welcome additional liquidity to the platform.

It’s possible to sell loans with a discount or a premium. Loans with a premium lower than 0.5% are extremely common, which partly compensates the lack of liquidity on the primary market. I seldom buy loans on the secondary market on other platforms; however, I often resort to doing so at Afranga.

There’s a lot of drama and complaints on Telegram regarding the secondary market. Indeed, a few investors apparently buy available loans as soon as they are uploaded on the primary market at 3am, and immediately list them on the secondary market with a 0.1% premium. I really don’t care about paying 0.1% extra – for a 24 months loan with 14% interest rate, the difference is minimal -. However, upset investors suggested introducing a minimal holding period before reselling, or disabling the ability to sell with a premium. Afranga has made it clear that they won’t change the current mechanism and will instead keep on increasing the loans supply the best they can, while maintaining the current loan book quality.

There’s no fee for using the secondary market, either for the buyer or the seller.

I noted a few glitches on the secondary market’s screen; mostly the fact that investing sometimes fails after I confirm the transactions – probably due to the high level of activity on the secondary market, caused by the lack of loans on the primary market -. In addition, using the secondary market requires several clicks and confirmations; it feels less fluid than the rest of the website.

Finally, it looks like it’s impossible to buy only part of a loan.

Afranga‘s website is currently only available in English. The translation’s quality is excellent.

Registering with Afranga is very quick. The KYC check requires investors to upload a copy of an identification document, which got validated nearly immediately in my case. As pointed out by one reader, the process has evolved and now also requires a selfie with the document.

Currently, it’s only possible to fund your investor’s account via a SEPA transfer. Funds as usually available the next business day.

Withdrawals are free. I didn’t withdraw any money yet (quite the opposite, in fact) so I don’t know how quickly such requests are processed.

As already noted, Afranga’s overall design has many similarities with Mintos’ website. However, I find Afranga‘s screens more readable.

Overall, the website is very pleasant to use. It’s fast, easy to navigate, and provides basically every feature a P2P investor may need.

There’s still room for improvement in technical terms, though. Signing-in sometimes fails for no apparent reason, and several investors complained about primary or secondary market filtering / sorting not working correctly.

Afranga‘s dashboard provides detailed portfolio statistics. In addition, the usual array of reporting features such as the investments list and account statement are available.

The FAQ A FAQ is simply a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions is detailed enough to be helpful. In addition, the “How it works” page provides a brief overview of the investing process.

Afranga doesn’t communicate much; however, investors will be notified of important milestones or new features by e-mail.

The platform’s Facebook page similarly feels rather empty.

On the other hand, StikCredit’s business development manager Svetlin Sabev is very active on Afranga discussion group on Telegram – a bit like Rita for PeerBerry‘s group. It’s the best place to ask questions or provide feedback regarding the platform.

In August 2022, Afranga sent their first Monthly Digest. Its content was rather thin – mostly statistics for the past month -. However, it also contained an important announcement. Indeed, it confirmed that the interest rates would currently be kept at 14%. Moreover, future changes will be communicated by e-mail. It’s a welcome step in terms of transparency.

Afranga‘s support can be reached by phone or email.

I created my Afranga portfolio in March 2021

Any individual investor who is at least 18 years old, has a citizenship in an EU/EEA country, a bank account in a EU/EEA country, and resides in a country that is considered to have an equivalent AML/CFT system to those of the European Union. In order to be able to add funds to your account, you must pass our verification process.

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