Index of P2P lending and crowd-lending platforms reviews

While the interest rates offered by EstateGuru‘s projects are lower than at Crowdestor, BulkEstate or ReInvest24, this platform provides great investment opportunities for those who want a more conservative portfolio. It’s also an excellent complement to CrowdEstate‘s real-estate loans.

EstateGuru’s long list of successfully repaid loans (as well as the way they managed the defaulted projects) help build confidence in this platform. It took me a long time to invest there, as I initially targeted more speculative loans. However, I now regularly add funds to this portfolio, in order to have a more balanced loans portfolio.

I used to prefer CrowdEstate over BulkEstate, thanks to the superior interface and much larger loans volume. However, after more than two years on both platforms, I can’t help but notice that the performance of my BulkEstate portfolio is much higher.

Moreover, BulkEstate’s track record is basically spotless, while CrowdEstate is struggling with late or defaulted business loans.

Overall, the platform’s projects offer a good risk/reward ratio for investors who want slightly more speculative loans than at EstateGuru.

So many platforms were founded by – or related to – lending groups in 2020 and 2021 that it’s easy to overlook Esketit. However, this platform offers several advantages over most competitors :

• interests rates can be as high as 14%, a rare occurrence nowadays
• loans from Jordan offer a great opportunity for geographical diversification
• the loans volume is large enough to prevent the cash drags which sometimes plague competitors such as ViaInvest or Afranga.

As I’m updating this review in January 2022, granting Lendermarket a rating turns out to be kind of a headache. On one hand, most aspects of the platform are very positive, from the excellent performance to the great ergonomics. On the other hand, the controversy surrounding their main loan originator’s reliability cannot be ignored.

At the end of the day, as investors we must always keep the risk/reward ratio in mind. 14% (or even 15%) interest rates are unfortunately a rare occurrence nowadays. Indeed, most competitors with a similar risk profile such as ViaInvest, Kviku or Twino offer 12% interest rates at best. The only exception is Esketit, where loans from Jordan yield 14% annually. I thus personally view Lendermarket’s loans as a great investment opportunity, especially considering that they are issued by a loan originator which as been profitable since its inception.

More conservative investors will probably feel more comfortable at Robocash, which is extremely solid and offers interest rates up to 12%. Moncera is another great choice, but investing there implies kissing double-digit interest rates good-bye.

Mintos is a very polarizing platform. Indeed, many investors lost money when several loan originators defaulted. At the same time, several other investors report that their Mintos portfolio provides the best performance among their peer-to-peer loans portfolios.

I tend to agree with the latter group, and consider that Mintos success is well deserved. Indeed, my portfolio delivers an excellent and very regular performance. Moreover, the impressive loans volume means that basically any amount can be invested without fearing a cash drag. Finally, thanks to the availability of Mintos strategies, even beginner investors can easily invest through the platform – although, as we’ll see, I basically recommend against using them -.

Of course, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. This especially holds true when it comes to providing reliable information about the loan originators – or even onboarding reliable ones -.

Additionally, now that many lending groups provide their own platforms, there’s no denying that Mintos isn’t as essential as it used to be.

Overall, as long as investors are aware of potential risks, Mintos proves to be an excellent choice to add some additional diversification to a loans portfolio.

I appreciate the opportunity to build a diversified portfolio by investing directly in loans from reliable originator Placet Group without using Mintos. However, the very low interest rates will mostly appear to more conservative investors. Those seeking higher returns will prefer Robocash or Afranga.

For a long time, I wasn’t so crazy about ReInvest24. Information about the projects were too scarce to my state, and the returns increased very slowly. However, now that several rental projects were exited, the performance has reached decent levels. The halved fee also helps building up performance much faster.

Although I overall still don’t like the interface – especially the secondary market -, I must admit that ReInvest24’s track record is very good. In addition, the amount of information provided – both during the funding phase and after it’s funded – is nothing short of remarkable.

Overall, ReInvest24 is a great complement to BulkEstate for investors who want to invest in projects potentially more rewarding than those listed at EstateGuru.

At first glance, Robocash‘s offer seems less appealing than most competitors. Indeed, interest rates are lower than at Esketit or Lendermarket. Moreover, in terms of website ergonomics, the platform really lags behind most competitors.

Despite these drawbacks, the financial solidity of Robocash Group incites me to grant Robocash four stars. Indeed, the platform’s risk/reward ratio is excellent.

When Afranga was launched, the very high interest rates – up to 18% – made this platform stand out. However, things have changed fast as the platform grew increasingly popular among investors. This success lead to reduced interest rates and a loans supply too small to absorb the demand for loans.

Interest rates now seem to have bottomed at 12%. At this level, there’s no great difference between Afranga and most competitors.

I thus view Robocash as a much better choice, as it offers the save level of interest rates while being more reliable – although there’s no denying that Afranga has a much better interface -. Even when it comes to complementing Robocash, I currently prefer to invest at Esketit, which offers similar or better interest rates than Afranga but doesn’t suffer from liquidity troubles.

Since Summer 2020, many improvements were unveiled at Crowdestor. It started with the enhanced projects descriptions and borrower’s credit report, which are a huge step forward in terms of investors information. In addition, the long awaited investor’s cabinet now provides useful data regarding the portfolio’s status. Similarly, the new loan management system (LMS) now guarantees that investors are kept up-to-date in term of projects updates. Finally, the availability of public statistics is an improvement in terms of transparency, although they may actually be biased, as we’ll see.

However, the current performance of Crowdestor’s loans portfolio is rather bad. Many loans are delayed or defaulted; roughly half outstanding projects are delayed by more than one month ! In addition, the reliability of the recovery process remains to be proven.

For now, unfortunately, investing in Crowdestor looks like a gamble. I really like this platform, but would advise prospective investors to carefully assess the projects they invest in !

I used to really love Omaraha. It was one of the first P2P platforms I used, along with Mintos and Twino. At some point, up to 60% of loans portfolio was invested there !

For a long time, thanks to the excellent performance, it was totally worth investing some time (and of course money) on this platform, in spite of the terrible interface. But now that the loans volume has decreased, it’s harder to recommend it as much as I used to. Moreover, Omaraha’s lack of transparency and non-existent communication are clear negatives.

In spite of this, for investors who want to focus solely on consumer loans, Omaraha still offers the best returns.

Thanks to the large selection of reliable loan originators A loan originator is the firm that originally provides the loan to the borrower. They usually lend a small percent of the amount using their own funds, while the remaining is put on sale on loans marketplaces. The part of the loan kept by the originator is called called skin in the game; it’s typically 5%-10% of the loan amount, and is supposed to encourage originators to provide quality loans., overall ease of use and good returns, PeerBerry is an excellent alternative – or complement – to Mintos.

It’s a pity that ViaInvest‘s offer is relatively complex when it comes to business or real-estate loans. In addition, the platform’s website pales in comparison to the well-designed interface most competitors offer.

However, the platform is part of a large group which is regarded as financially solid. In addition, returns are reasonable – roughly comparable to Moncera, but lower than Robocash or Lendermarket -.

Overall, ViaInvest provides a good way to diversify a P2P loans portfolio through reliable loan originators.

Although I still appreciate the large supply of loans available at CrowdEstate, I have to admit that my portfolio’s performance is deceiving. The actual returns for speculative loans are far from the expected ones !

Overall, I’m much more impressed by EstateGuru, both in terms of transparency and performance.

It has always been hard for me to choose between Robocash and Swaper. For a long time, Swaper’s much better ergonomics has incited me to prefer this platform, in spite of the cash drags which used to occur regularly.

However, what finally tipped the scale in favor of Robocash is this platform’s transparency and financial solidity. Indeed, Swaper’s loan originators are mostly blackboxes, which publish zero financial information. In contrast, Robocash Group provides audited financial statements. They show that the group has been consistently profitable for several years.