Moncera review

Moncera offers mostly consumer loans in Euro. Like its direct competitor Lendermarket, interest rates on the platform vary from one country to another. As of May 2021, they range between 8% and 10%. These figures are much lower than at Lendermarket, which currently offers interest rates above 14%, or Robocash, where they commonly stand around 12%.

Another difference with these two competitors is the lack of short-term loans. Indeed, apart from a few exceptions, most loans are medium or long-term. The maximum duration is a record 90 months !

Geographically, borrowers are located either in Estonia or Lithuania.

Finally, the minimal investment amount is €10. This is the standard amount for P2P loans.

In addition to consumer loans, the platform has introduced real-estate loans in Spring 2021. Until now, only two projects were available.

The first loan was used to renovate a property in Tallinn. Its amount was relatively small – €40,000 -. Interest rates stood at 7%, which is rather low, even compared to EstateGuru.

The second loan is a refinancing loan for an Estonian real-estate project previously financed on CrowdEstate. It has a much larger amount (€330,000).

Both loans are secured by a 1st-rank mortgage and have reasonable LTV levels (65% and 68%).

In terms of duration, these two loans are medium-term (11 months and 7 months). The first one has monthly interests repayments, while the second one is full-bullet.

It’s obviously too early to judge the future real-estate loans at Moncera. However, the current project doesn’t seem as attractive as EstateGuru‘s loans – not to mention the lack of real-estate expertise by Moncera -.

Currently, there are around 350 loans for a total amount around €250,000. It’s a large amount; however, most of these loans barely reach double-digit interest rates. As a result, although it’s relatively easy to invest large sums, the resulting returns are likely to be around 10% at best.

The buyback guarantee A buyback guarantee is a guarantee provided by the platform or a loan originator. If repayment of a loan is delayed by more than a given delay (usually 30 or 60 days), the platform or loan originator will buy back the loan. The guarantee may cover only part of the capital, or in a much more interesting case, both the capital and accrued interests. As the conditions vary from one platform to another, it’s very important to check this point. provided by Placet Group triggers after 30 days. Both principal and interests are covered.

This delay is identical to Robocash‘s. On the other hand, Lendermarket‘s guarantee requires a longer delay of 60 days to trigger.

The financial solidity of the platform’s loan originators is excellent. I also appreciate the large volume of information available about the platform.

Moncera was founded in 2019 by two ex-employees of loan originator Placet Group.

CEO Dmitri Pavlov worked at CreditStar before joining Placet Group and subsequently founding Moncera. The other co-founder and CIO is Aleksei Telitsyn. Both are introduced on Moncera’s website, along with links to their LinkedIn profile.

Unlike most other P2P platforms, only very basic data is provided about the borrower.

However, it’s now a big deal, as P2P loans are rather standard.

Placet Group and its subsidiary Nordecum UAB (which operates in Lithuania) are regarded as very reliable. As of March 2021, Placet Group is the highest rated originator on ExploreP2P’s ratings for Mintos originators, with a score of 79 out of 100. Mintos granted this loan originator a risk score of 8 for Estonia, and 7 for Lithuania.

2019 financial reports for both entities are directly available on Moncera‘s website. They were audited by Ernst & Young, which makes them reliable. They show that Placet Group has been profitable for several years. Additional data regarding the loan originators is available as well; I appreciate this large amount of information.

At some point, the platform mentioned the possible inclusion of other loan originators. This project apparently has been put on hold.

Although the loans list is only available for registered users, Moncera reports the total loans volume funded and number of investors.

Moncera‘s financial reports for 2019 are available; be aware that at that point the company was still called Bancera OÜ. They show a small profit, however it’s not very meaningful. Indeed, the platform only started operating in Spring 2020.

Moncera is barely one year old, so talking about a track record is rather meaningless. However, the financial solidity of Placet Group bodes well for the platform’s future.

As of March 2021, loans from Placet Group are still available on Mintos. Let’s review the pros and cons of investing directly through Moncera.

First, interest rates on Mintos are substantially lower; they indeed range from 6% to 8%.

Selling loans on Mintos’ secondary market incurs a 0.85% fee. Using Moncera’s “One click Exit” will cost only 0.5% of the selling value, which is more interesting. However, Mintos will pay interests which accrued until the selling date, whether the seller will lose them on Moncera. One advantage of Moncera is that selling loans is instantaneous. On Mintos, the seller may have to wait until there’s a buyer.

On Mintos, the grace period for Nordecum Lithuanian loans is 2 days; this will reduce returns if many borrowers are late. Funds in transit may also decrease your portfolio’s performance slightly. On the other hand, when investing on Moncera, there’s no grace period, and reimbursements are credited without delay.

The buyback guarantee delay is 30 days on Moncera, but is twice as long when investing at Mintos ! In all fairness, it’s not a big deal, as interests get paid by the loan originator in both cases.

Overall, there’s little incentive to invest on Placet loans on Mintos. The only advantage is to manage a diversified portfolio from different originators using a single platform.

For peer-to-peer loans, I advocate using auto-invest in order to save time. However, investors who want to invest manually at Moncera can easily do so.

Available loans can be filtered out using various criteria.

• Interest rate
• Borrower”s country
• Remaining loan term

One additional available criterion is the borrower’s rating. This makes sense when the buyback guarantee doesn’t exist, or doesn’t cover interests. For example, Iuvo‘s buyback guarantee only covers the principal. Defaulted loans won’t yield interests, and thus it may be interesting to focus on the highest-rated borrowers in order to preserve the performance. However, as Placet Group’s buyback guarantee covers both capital and interests, it doesn’t make much sense to focus on the rating. In consequence, I include all of them when investing at Moncera.

Setting up Moncera‘s auto-invest is easy. The available filters are the same as when investing manually.

In addition, it’s necessary to indicate the target portfolio size, the maximum investment in a single loan, and enable or disable automatic reinvesting.

One handy feature is that the screen displays how many loans match the current criteria.

Investors who want to sell all or part of their portfolio can use the One click exit feature. Loans will be bought back directly – and immediately – by the platform. The associated fee is 0.5%, and the accrued interests will be lost.

An interesting Moncera feature is the cooling-off period. It allows to resell loans during 14 days after buying them; there’s no incurred fee. However, accrued interests will be canceled, just like when using the One click exit.

Moncera‘s website is available in several languages : English, Estonian, German and Lithuanian. The English translation is excellent.

Registering my Moncera account was very quick. Because of KYC KYC (Know Your Customer) checks are procedures used by financial businesses in order to verify the identity of their clients. Most Crowdlending platforms will require a copy of an identification document (identity card, passport, driving licence); an utility bill or bank statement may be necessary as well. regulations, prospective investors have to verify their identity. Unlike my bad experience on a few competing platforms, I don’t even remember doing so at Moncera. I take it as a sign that their process is well streamlined !

Account funding is done via a SEPA transfer. Funds are processed by the platform immediately. As a result, they’re typically available the next business day after I transfer them.

In a purely subjective way, I’m not a big fan of Moncera’s color scheme. But that’s a minor detail; overall, the website is well designed and easy to navigate.

The dashboard displays the usual array of statistics about the loans portfolio :

• Account value
• Loan statuses and remaining duration
• Total income and accrued interests

In addition, a handy cash flow forecast – broken down either by year or month – is available.

Unfortunately, Moncera is among the many platforms which don’t display a XIRR. It still puzzles me why such a useful figure isn’t widely available !

The account statement can be filtered and downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet. The same features are available for the list of loans in portfolio.

The FAQ A FAQ is simply a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions contains few items, but its contents is well detailed. In contrast, the “How it works” page is rather succinct.

Moncera is a small operation and communication obviously isn’t their main focus. Indeed, the platform doesn’t have a blog, and all e-mails I received were automated account summaries. Their frequency are configurable on the website; it’s also possible to enable or disable notifications on account change, as well as commercial information.

A good way to get in touch with the platform is to use Moncera’s Telegram channel. Indeed, Moncera’s CEO and co-founder often answers investors’ questions there.

Support is available by phone or e-mail. Until now, I didn’t need to contact the platform so I can’t vouch for the support’s quality.

I created my Moncera portfolio in May 2020

To become an investor you need to be at least 18 years old, be a resident of a European Economic Area (EEA) country and have a bank account in your name opened in an EEA country. An individual is recognized as a resident if he or she is a citizen, has a residence permit or is registered as a tax payer in an EEA country.

Moncera offers a great way to diversify a portfolio with P2P loans from a reliable originator. It's a perfect complement to Robocash, or, for investors with some experience, to Mintos' most reliable lending companies such as Iute, Wowwo or Delfin Group.

When it comes to real-estate loans, I'd advise prospective investors to stick to EstateGuru. Indeed, interest rates are higher, LTV is lower, and they have a proven track record. So, why take risks ?

Please note that this review may contain affiliate links. It means that I will earn a commission if you decide to invest after clicking through the link – at no additional cost to you, of course -. Please understand that I have experienced all of these companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the commissions I make if you decide to invest through my links.