Robocash review August 2022 – Great returns and reliability, outdated interface

All Robocash loans are in Euro. Interest rates on the platform tend to change regularly, as they’re mostly determined by supply and demand.

During the first Covid-19 wave in Spring 2020, they were increased to 14%. Later that year, they returned to 12% on September, and kept on decreasing throughout 2021. One more decrease was expected in early 2022. However, as the war in Ukraine broke out, the platform reversed course and increased rates instead.

Finally, the platform changed interest rates twice during the summer. The most recent change is expected to start on August, 24th 2022.

Very short-term loans now yield only 8%. Durations above 3 months will be rewarded by 11.5% interest rates, while the best interest rate (13%) can be obtained by investing for two years or more.

As of July 2O22, most of the loans supply comes from Singapore, followed by the Philippines. Kazakhstan loans used to be plentiful but are notoriously absent nowadays. Moreover, there’s no loan from Spain; this is slightly surprising as competitors Lendermarket and Esketit list plenty of loans from this country.

Although the loans demand tends to vary a lot throughout the year, in practice it’s doesn’t impact investors who will always find loans to invest in.

A recent improvement is that all loans now yield interests monthly. Indeed, long-term loans from Singapore used to be “full bullet”. This means both principal and interests were reimbursed at maturity date. However, in September 2020, the platform announced that from now on, these loans would be repaid monthly. That’s great news for investors looking for a regular cash-flow !

The platform also clarified the status of Singapore loans, which are classified as commercial loans. These loans are issued by RC Riga and are used to fund the group’s operations in various countries such as India or Sri-Lanka.

Finally, the minimal investment amount is a very standard € 10. At the other side of the spectrum, for very large portfolios, there’s a monthly investment limit of €25,000 per month. This threshold applies to natural persons; for legal entities, it is €15,000 monthly.

In late September 2020, Robocash unveiled their Loyalty program. Competitors Swaper and PeerBerry already offered such a feature for a long time, while Esketit implemented it in Spring 2022.

The minimal investment amount required to qualify is €5,000 (Bronze status). Investing this amount results in an additional 0.3% interest rate. The maximum bonus is 1.3% for the new Platinum status, introduced in Spring 2022. It’s granted for amounts larger than €50,000.

Three intermediary levels exist, with thresholds at €10,000, €15,000 and €25,000.

How does it compare to loyalty program offered by competitors ? It’s overall similar to PeerBerry’s one, which also offers a 0.5% bonus above €10,000. However, investors with smaller portfolios will enjoy Robocash’s Bronze status as soon as they invest five thousand euros.

On the other hand, Esketit‘s Loyalty program is extremely restrictive as only loans from Jordan – which are more speculative – will benefit from the bonus. In addition, the thresholds are extremely high – €25,000 for a 0.5% bonus and twice as much for a 1% bonus -.

Like many competitors, Robocash used to suffer from cash drags. Indeed, in October – November 2017, the platform struggled to invest all my funds. Later, for most of 2018, I usually had around 10% of my portfolio which didn’t get invested.

Fortunately, in 2019 and 2020, the platform expanded their business in several Asian countries. In consequence, the loans supply became large enough to meet the demand, and having idle funds is now a thing of the past.

As of August 2022, the volume of available loans stands slightly above €800,000 – a slight decrease from the amount of one million euros available in late 2021, but a much larger amount than in Spring 2022 -.

All loan originators on the platform offer a buyback guarantee. It triggers after a reimbursement is delayed by the borrower for longer than 30 days – a shorter delay than most competitors, as a 60 days delay is now the norm -. It covers both principal and accrued interests.

It’s worth noting that according to the platform, commercial loans will always be repaid on time – as the borrower is actually a subsidiary of Robocash Group -.

One could expect a platform which such a cheap-looking website to be rather opaque. However, nothing would be further from the truth !

Indeed, in terms of transparency and reliability, Robocash is doing very well. It’s worth noting that a lot of information will actually be found on the platform’s parent group Robocash Group rather than on the platform’s website itself. However, since the homepage redesign in early 2021, data such as statistics were added to Robocash’s own site.

I tend to put a lot of trust in ExploreP2P‘s ratings. For a long time, Robocash used to be ranked #1. However, its rating got decreased twice after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s now rated 72 out of 100 and thus lags behind lending group DelfinGroup (80/100), Moncera‘s Placet Group (79/100) and originator IuteCredit (75/100).

Robocash was founded by Robocash Group in 2017, in order to fund the growth of their loans portfolio. Their headquarter was initially located in Riga, Latvia but moved to Zagreb, Croatia in 2019. This is a rather unusual choice among P2P platforms. No actual reason was given for this relocation.

Robocash Group’s management is introduced on the website. I only regret the lack of direct links to the relevant LinkedIn profiles !

The platform initially planned an IPO on the ASX market (Australian Securities Exchange) in late 2020. However, thanks to better than expected 2020 results, Robocash decided to postpone the IPO in order to explore other opportunities.

In order to finance its development, Robocash’s parent group announced a bond issuance in May 2021. The collected funds were used to develop a lending service in Sri-Lanka. Plans for an online bank in Southeast Asia are also underway.

Most P2P platform display details about borrowers such as age, gender, location, employment and so on. Robocash provide zero information about them. However, this politics actually makes sense, as it’s impossible to invest manually on this platform.

There are currently five loan originators available on Robocash; they are all subsidiaries of Robocash Group. Each of them issues loans on a specific country.

• Prestamer in Spain
• Robocash PTE in Singapore
• Robocash.kz in Kazakhstan. It was introduced in February 2021 and gradually replaced Tez Finance
• UnaPay in the Philippines. Operations started in May 2021
• RC Riga in Sri Lanka

The website provides a few details about each of them.

There used to be more originators, but two of them were removed in 2019. Moreover, in late 2019, the Philippines originator Robocash Finance Corp. was barred from operating, due to a license problem. Fortunately, this didn’t lead to any loss for investors. Robocash Group resumed operating in this country in May 2021 under the brand UnaPay.

Commercial loans from Sri Lanka were introduced in March 2022. It proved to be a bad timing, as the country defaulted on its foreign debt one month later. As a result, Robocash has stopped listing loans from this country until the situation improves – which is likely to take a while -.

As Robocash originated in Russia, it’s legitimate for investors to raise questions regarding the safety of their investments on Robocash, as this country is heavily targeted by sanctions following Ukraine’s invasion.

Fortunately, the situation is much better than expected. Let’s start with the bad part : although the platform doesn’t list loans from Russia, Robocash Group has a lending activity in this country through the Zaymer brand. As the Russian economy suffers from the multiple waves of sanctions, the funds collection has decreased, negatively impacting the group’s profit in Q1 2022. However, this didn’t impact Robocash investors.

On the positive side, funds invested on the platform never reach Russia. Robocash Group is headquartered in Singapore, while Robocash as a platform is located in Zagreb. Funds invested on Robocash are lent in Asia, and don’t transit through a Russian bank. As a result, transfers or reimbursements won’t be impacted by restrictions on Swift transfers or political sanctions.

Overall, I think that ExploreP2P’s downgraded rating for Robocash (72 instead of 82) sums up the situation rather well. The platform’s reliability has taken a slight hit, which is reflected by the new rating. However, it’s still a very profitable business; moreover, its international setup effectively shields Robocash Group from the sanctions towards Russia.

I greatly appreciate the fact that financial statements for Robocash Group are available. The statement for 2020 was released in late April 2021. In spite of the Covid-19, net profit for 2020 were close to twenty four million dollars. That’s roughly a 50% increase from previous year !

2021 was a great year as well, as the profit was close to thirty million dollars.

However, the trend reversed in early 2022, as during the first trimester the group’s profits suffered greatly from both the unrest in Kazakhstan and the war in Ukraine. It still managed to turn a profit, though.

A noteworthy aspect is that slowdown didn’t impact investors : loans from Kazakhstan were repaid according to the schedule, and no Russian loan is listed on Robocash.

Moreover, the situation improved greatly during the second trimester. Indeed, profit for H1 2022 is only roughly 10% lower than for H1 2021 ! This is very impressive, and basically means that the bad results in Q1 were offset by outstanding results during the second trimester.

Reports for years up to 2019 got audited by KPMG, one of the leading accounting organizations. The platform then switched auditors. Indeed, from 2020 onwards, financial reports underwent an audit by FBK Grant Thornton, which is less known than KPMG. The reports show a very regular profit growth, which is one of Robocash’s strength.

As a side note, FBK was the Russian branch of Grant Thornton. After the war in Ukraine broke out, FBK left the Grant Thornton network. It’s thus likely that there will be yet another auditor next year.

In addition to the financial reports for Robocash Group, a few figures are available regarding the platform’s loan portfolio. For example, the total loans volume is provided. We can see that it roughly doubles every year.

The growth of the investors base is equally impressive. Moreover, it continued in Q1 2022; it’s a proof that investors still trust Robocash.

Robocash is doing rather well compared to loan marketplaces such as Mintos or the now nearly deceased Viventor, which feature many more originators.

Indeed, there’s been no loss for investors, in spite of the platform stopping operations in some countries. Similarly, the unrest in Kazakhstan in early 2022 had no consequence on invested funds. However, as we’ve already seen, it greatly impacted the platform’s profitability.

Before the introduction of longer-term loans, Robocash didn’t feature a secondary market. Due to the very short loans duration, it wasn’t really a drawback. This feature was thus unveiled after the introduction of long-term loans.

There used to be restrictions on which loans could be sold. Indeed, it was initially only possible to sell loans after owning them for 180 days. After putting the loan for sale, it could either be bought by another investor, or directly by the platform after a 14 days delay.

Fortunately, it is now possible to sell shorter-term loans. However, the platform doesn’t buy loans on the secondary market anymore; only other investors will do so. As a consequence, liquidity won’t be guaranteed anymore.

For a long time, it was quite hard to find out how to sell the loans. Indeed, the checkbox which allows to select loans was nearly invisible due to a poor colors contrast. This aspect has fortunately been improved and the process is now much more intuitive.

Selling loans on the secondary market is free. Secondary markets at many competitors allow to set a premium or discount while selling; however, Robocash only allows to sell loans at face value.

Unlike other platforms, when it comes to displaying the available loans, Robocash doesn’t differentiate between the primary and secondary market. All loans are grouped in a single market, and loans from the secondary market are labeled as such.

It’s not possible to invest manually; use of auto-invest is mandatory. I don’t consider this a drawback, as picking peer-to-peer loans by hand is a loss of time.

While the initial auto-invest screen had several rather confusing labels, it’s been redesigned. It is now easier to understand, although there’s still room for improvement.

One useful aspect of the auto-invest screen is that it provides a good overview of the loans provided by each originator :

• Operating country
• Interest rate
• Loan duration

In addition, a handy summary of the current interest rates is available on the right column. I’m not sure if it’s a recent addition to the screen, or if I simply didn’t notice it earlier.

(Please note that these two screenshots were taken before the interest rates change on July, 13th). Short-term loans now yield 8% instead of 10%.

I appreciate that the screen displays the number of loans which match the selected filter.

It’s possible to configure the auto-invest to buy loans from the secondary market, a feature that competitors don’t provide.

Another unique feature is the large number of options when it comes to reinvesting fund. It’s indeed possible to reinvest only the principal, or automatically transfer the reimbursements to your bank account once they reach a certain sum. Unfortunately, the wording isn’t very clear – although the information tooltips are a great help -.

Here’s how to configure it :

• Balance : this is equivalent to stopping auto-invest. Repayments will be transferred to your balance.
• Payout : this option will also stop the auto-invest. Additionally, the balance will be automatically transferred to the selected bank account once it reaches € 50.
• Reinvest full amount : allows to reinvest both principal and interests, and set a maximum portfolio size
• Reinvest principal amount : only reinvests the reimbursed principal, while interests accumulate in the balance.

Thanks to the homepage’s redesign, there’s now a handy and very readable explanation for these options. Unfortunately, it’s not visible once logged in. I expect this to be improved once the investor’s cabinet also gets updated.

The English version isn’t as well translated as for most competitors, but is legible enough.

Registration is quick and relatively easy, although once again the translations for several labels are a bit weird.

Although the only way to fund your account is via a SEPA transfer, it should meet the need of most investors.

Robocash website is globally easy to use, but the dated interface is far from being as streamlined as most competitors. It especially pales when compared to Swaper‘s or Lendermarket‘s beautifully designed websites !

However, the great advantage of this very old-school design is that the website is blazing fast. When I check my P2P lending portfolio by opening one browser tab per platform, Robocash is always available first. And it will load even with a poor connection, which is useful when traveling in a remote area.

In term of ergonomics, one minor annoyance is that if you ever want to see a loan agreement, it isn’t displayed in your browser but downloaded as a Word document.

In February 2021, the platform unveiled their new homepage design. It’s much more modern than the previous iteration – and, amazingly, still loads very quickly -. There’s now more information and documentation available; the readability has also been greatly improved.

Unfortunately, once logged in, the investor’s cabinet is still the same. It’s expected to undergo the same kind of overhaul as the homepage, though.

Unlike several competitors such as Mintos or PeerBerry, there’s no app available for Robocash. The platform currently has no plan to develop one.

The reporting is rather complete; investors have access to the investments list, the transactions report, as well as several statistics about their portfolio. Unfortunately, as is too often the case for crowdlending platforms, no XIRR value for the portfolio is provided. Instead, Robocash displays the portfolio’s average interest rate. Although this figure includes closed loans, it may still differ greatly from actual returns, as bonuses aren’t taken into account.

For long-term investors, one useful statistic is the amount of accrued interests which didn’t get paid yet.

The website features a rather expansive FAQ A FAQ is simply a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions. It has been rewritten when the platform’s new homepage got released and is quite useful, in spite of the sometimes awkward phrasing.

Robocash used to be a very quiet platform. Indeed, for a long time, the only communication was a notification when transferred money reached your investor’s account !

Things have changed, and investors now receive a monthly newsletter. It mostly sums up the platform’s performance, but also introduces important changes.

In addition, new posts are frequently published on the platform’s blog. They’re usually very short but informative.

Robocash is also one of the rare platforms with a dedicated Telegram channel. It contains mostly marketing announcements, which are similar to the content posted by the platform on Twitter or Facebook.

In addition, there’s an unofficial Telegram group. Anna from Robocash is available to answer investors’ questions.

In terms of support, there’s a contact form available on the website. In addition to this, it’s possible to get in touch with Robocash by e-mail or phone.

I created my Robocash portfolio in September 2017

Any person age of 18, who has a bank account in one of the European Union countries, can become an investor on Robocash.

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.