P2P Portfolio Update July 2020

Gather around everyone, I’ve got lots of news for the P2P Portfolio Update July 2020!

• FastInvest losing credibility, possibly a scam platform.
• Mintos‘ new Terms of Service (TOS) looks bad for the investors.
• I started investing on Lendermarket platform.
• I achieved the goal for my emergency fund.

P2P Portfolio Update July 2020 Overview

Last month I wrote that I see no reason to invest on other platforms. Well, I got some bonus money from my full-time job and decided to put it to good use. I was debating between putting it in my Mintos account or investing it on a new P2P platform. Since Mintos is not looking that attractive anymore (more on this later), I chose to invest on Lendermarket P2P platform because of the good sign-up bonus and solid loan originator Creditstar. I will, of course, write a review of the platform in the near future, so be sure to come back in a week or two. 🙂

Anyway, let’s dive into numbers.

Compared to previous months:

After 3 months my income is back above 30 € per month! Happy to see people’s lives are improving in Corona times (since they are able to pay off loans).

Overall I am aiming at about 12% APY, which at 4500 € invested money should be around 45 € per month. For this month, if we exclude Lendermarket’s invested money (because I invested it at the end of the month), I had 11,75% XIRR, which is cool!

Iuvo Group July Update

I actually did not open Iuvo Group’s website the whole month, so the money here is really passive income. 🙂

Statement:

Buyback principal received still seems high to me, but I am not sure if this is normal or not. I will have to ask other P2P bloggers.

Income compared to previous months:

My highest month so far, I am really happy about it. 🙂

Mintos July Update

Like I mentioned in my previous monthly update, Mintos recently seemed … weird. I changed my auto-invest settings, but I was not prepared for their new Terms Of Service (TOS), specifically section 10.4:

10.4. The User acknowledges that in case the Loan Originator or other party mentioned in the Assignment Agreement does not make payments to Mintos when they are due, Mintos may incur costs, including external legal fees, when taking actions as an authorized representative of the Assignees which such actions are aimed at recovery of funds for the Assignees, restructuring of the payment obligations towards the Assignees, or taking other actions which are aimed at achieving payments being made to the Assignees with respect to their Claims. The Users acknowledge that Mintos is entitled to compensation of such reasonable costs incurred as authorized representative of the Assignees and agree to compensate Mintos such costs.

https://assets.mintos.com/9E7290D4-3BAA-327E-127C-68AA67590C97.pdf

TL;DR is that investors (you and me) will have to compensate Mintos for any costs that incur when Mintos is going after Loan originators to get the money that they (LO) owe.

This means Mintos does not care what Loan originators are on this P2P platform, because in case the Loan originator goes bankrupt, the investors cover all the Mintos’ costs. In my opinion, this is not right. When Mintos makes a profit, they keep it, but if things go south, we, the investors have to pay for it. Privatized profits, socialized losses.

I don’t want to overreact, so for now I decided to stop investing 100 € per month. If things get worse, I will consider exiting the platform.

Statement:

Compared to previous months:

Like I mentioned, I don’t plan to invest more money on Mintos, so for now the numbers will be boring. We will see how the situation overall with the platform will turn out.

Lendermarket July Update

Like mentioned at the start of this article, I chose to invest on P2P platform Lendermarket because of the good sign-up bonus and solid loan originator Creditstar, which is the only loan originator on the platform.

I invested 1364 € on 20. 7. 2020. I must say, opening an account, depositing money, and setting up auto-invest was the easiest thing I have done in my life. If you are new to the P2P universe, and a bit taken aback or scared, I’d say Lendermarket is the best first P2P platform to start on.

So for July I only got 21 cents from interests, so I will only share the statement.

ETF July Update

Nothing new in the stock world. S&P 500 seems to be at resistance, but no matter what happens, my plan is not going to change. I invest every month to VWCE ETF and that’s it. 🙂

I decided to provide a screenshot of my position. On the image, you can see that I own 15,4 units of VWCE ETF at the average buy price of 71,9993 €.

If you want to learn more about ETFs, check my guide here.

What’s Up With FastInvest?

For anyone who is invested on FastInvest P2P platform, I decided to give a little heads up and share a blog post from blogger Kristaps Mors, titled ‘Is FastInvest using lawyers to silence blogger?‘. Decide for yourself, if you want to support such P2P platforms.

To End on a More Positive Note

To end this P2P Portfolio Update July 2020 on a more positive note, I decided to share my achievement of meeting my emergency fund goal of 2000 €. This now means that I will invest all of the leftover money that I will not spend in a month.

It’s always good to have your finances in check. I like to live frugally and track my expenses and incomes with the Android app Toshl. Set up your budgets per month and you’re good to go! Have fun and see you next month. 🙂