Germany

P2P Lending With Cars as Collateral

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German p2p lending service Auxmoney.com has introduced a new feature this week. Borrowers can now offer a car as collateral for a p2p loan.

The user pays a fee of 9.95 Euro to document this in his loan listing. Pictures of the car, the model and the mileage and the estimated price a car dealer would pay for car are displayed in the listing. In this example listing, the borrower puts up his BMW as collateral. The estimated value covers 101% of the loan amount requested. In general the car can cover any percentage of the loan amount – it does not need to cover the full amount. Furthermore there is information on the type of insurance coverage.

If the loan is funded, then a contract defines the terms of the assignment as security. The borrower continues to drive the car (obviously he is not allowed to sell it without the consent of Auxmoney), but needs to deposit the certificate of ownership (motor vehicle registration certificate) at Auxmoney. This arrangement costs the borrower 2 Euro per month.

Should the borrower fail to repay the loan, then Auxmoney has the right to sell the car.

While a car as collateral does in not provide fail-safe security (many things can happen), it will be probably perceived by lenders as one feature for higher security against defaults.

The Wiseclerk Auxmoney stats page will in future track the performance of p2p loans secured by cars.

This is a first for p2p lending – but soon another p2p lending service will follow. Pärtel Tomberg, CEO of Estonian p2p lending service Isepankur told P2P-Banking.com earlier this month, that Isepankur will introduce cars and real estate as collateral for p2p loans in the second half of 2010.

(Photo by pedrosimoes7)

Smava Enters Marketing Partnership with Cortal Consors Bank

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Smava has entered a marketing cooperation with Cortal Consors bank. Cortal Consors will promote Smava as a new asset class to it’s customer. Smava will pay Cortal Consors referral fees for referred lenders and borrowers.

Newsworthy is that this is the first marketing deal a bank has entered in with a p2p lending service. The implications of the deal itself are rather unspectacular as the information is buried deep inside the Cortal Consors website where few are likely to see it.

In other news Smava has redesigned the website and changed the slogan a couple of days ago. The former slogan was “Kredite von Mensch zu Mensch” which roughly translates to “Loans from human to human”. The new slogan is “Direkt Kredit” (engl. “direct loan(s)”). The motivation of this change according to Smava was to enhance the message that loans are direct, easy, and competitive. Smava says borrowers had wrong associations with the old slogan, thinking that long negotiations with individual lenders would be necessary.

Published feedback by users (lenders) on the new slogan critisizes that the new slogan resembles those of impersonal financial institutions – an image that p2p lending services aimed to differentiate themselves from.

Happy Anniversary: 3 Years Smava Lending

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Smava.de launched 3 years ago and successfully established p2p lending in Germany. Since then about 25 million Euro (approx. 34.4 million US$) loans were funded. Smava  gained nearly all positive feedback by lenders, borrowers and especially the media.

Smava will need to continue growing considerably in order to become profitable. Currently growth is limited by borrower demand. On the lender side there is much capital waiting to be invested.

One issue Smava will have to tackle in the future are the default rates that distinctly exceed originally forecasted values. So far these have not been a threat to growth because  the ‘Anleger-Pools‘ mechanism, an insurance mechanism spreading losses resulting from defaults over many lenders, prevented major losses for single lenders. In the past years nearly all lenders achieved positive ROIs.

The P2P-Kredite blog has published a longer analysis today: ‘3 Jahre Smava Kredite – eine Bilanz‘ (in German).

MyMicroCredit – P2P Microfinance to the Needy

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Karl Rabeder was a successful entrepreneur and rich. But being a millionaire did not make him happy and he was seeking a purpose in life. So he sold his villa in Austria, his house in France and his 5 sailplanes and moved into a small 1 room apartment in Innsbruck.

Now he dedicates his time to the p2p microfinance non profit he founded: MyMicroCredit.org. MyMicrocredit enables lenders to fund loans to needy persons in Latin America, Asia and Africa with the objective to become self-employed. Currently MyMicroCredit partners with the MFI Apoyo Integral in El Salvador, Nicaragua, concentrating on funding education projects for agriculture teachers.

I contributed 25 EUR towards a 24 months loan. The website display of projects (see left) bears resemblance to Kiva. No registration is necessary to lend. This allows fast and easy funding but has the disadvantage that lenders cannot login to see a portfolio of what loans they did fund.

Lenders will by notified be email upon repayment of a loan and can then decide to reinvest or withdraw their money.

(Sources:  Chrismon, P2P-Kredite.com)

Smava Offers Debt Conversion

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Recently p2p lending service Smava.de introduced a new offer aimed at borrowers that want to refinance a loan they have at a financial institution. If the loan request at Smava is funded by lenders, Smava will deal with the financial institution directly acting upon a certificate of authority signed by the borrower.

The loan amount of the new loan is not paid out to the borrower – instead it is directly transferred to the financial institution paying off the previous loan.

There is no extra charge for this service (the normal loan fees apply). Smava makes it easy for the borrower to replace conventional bank loans by peer-to-peer loans.

(Source: P2p-Kredite.com)

Auxmoney Adds More Loan Term Choices

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Auxmoney.com has added more loan term choices for it’s p2p lending borrowers to choose from on the weekend. Previously available loan terms at Auxmoney were 12, 24 and 36 months. Now any term between 12 and 60 months (in 6 month increments) can be selected.

Auxmoney achieved substantial growth rates in the second half of 2009 (see Wiseclerk statistics tracking Auxmoney loan originations per month). And this is despite the fact that Auxmoney was criticized by a renowned consumer advocacy institution for misleading marketing and unfavourable fee structures.

In international comparison of p2p lending fee structures, Auxmoney is a rare exception, as it charges many fees regardless of whether a loan request is successfully funded or not. With it’s listing fees Auxmoney generates revenues even from those customers with bad credit history that have little or no chance of getting funded by lenders.

(Source: Uses information from yesterday’s article at P2P-Kredite.com)