Countries

Partizipa uses crowdfunding to fund companies

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Spanish startup Partizipa.com does p2c lending instead of p2p lending. Individual investors can lend money together to fund a company. Currently a solar power plant in Andalucia is listed for funding. The amount to be raised is 285,000 Euro. Minimum individual investment is 5,000 Euro. The project advertises 13.85% ROI.

Earlier investors bought land in Bulgaria through Partizipa.

I did a short interview with Agustín Cárdenas, one of the founders of Partizipa:

P2P-Banking.com: Can you please describe Partizipa?

Agustín Cárdenas: Currently, we are offering P2C (person to company) lending, making it possible to invest small sums of money in big businesses. At the moment we are still developing the frame-work for P2P lending, and we hope we will be able to offer it sometime later this year. As of now, we cannot provide any further details. Our main aim is to build a community in which any given member presents a new idea for a business to the others for it to be enriched, completed and financed. If the business is successful, then every investor will share the profits according to his/her investment.

P2P-Banking.com: Who can invest? Only residents of Spain, or anybody?

Agustín Cárdenas: The only prerequisite to become a member of the community is to have a bank account in Spain under his/her name.

P2P-Banking.com: Does Partizipa administer and transfer the funds, or does it just
make contact between investor and business opportunity and both handle
the contract and the payment themselves?

Agustín Cárdenas: If the business is created by us, then it is us who manage the entire process up until the moment of completion and the sharing of profits. In any other case, even though we supervise all the process, we only put in contact the business originator and the investors.

P2P-Banking.com: When did you start the company?

Agustín Cárdenas: We are an extraordinarily young company. We have been operating only since September 2007. So far, our registered users have financed projects valued at 2.3 million Euro.

First anniversary of Boober

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A year ago Boober.nl launched as first peer to peer lending service in the Netherlands. While Boober faced some hardship (especially on regulation issues) the first year of Boober can be called a success for the company. So far Boober has funded over 2 million Euro in loans in the Netherlands. Compare this to the 1 million Euro Smava.de has loaned in the much larger German market in the last 10 months.

But not all lenders are satisfied with the results. The PIVN an association of lenders, on Jan. 14th called for an investment stop. The main cause are fee changes. Richard van den Toorn, Secretary of PIVN, told P2P-Banking.com:

It's not going very well with Boober, although they claim otherwise. The
PIVN (association of investors) has indeed given an advice not to invest
in new loans until some of her demands have been met. Reason for giving
such an advice is that Boober changed their payment-policy for the
investors radically, without consulting the PIVN first. It's so much the
height of their fee …, but that they are making sure the
benefits are going to Boober first, leaving the investors [lenders] with the risk of
remaining payments from the borrower. Continue reading →

Globefunder announces launch of peer to peer lending in India

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Globefunder announced the launch of Globefunder India, which it claims is the first p2p lending service in India.

GlobeFunder India is now up and running, making us the first online lending marketplace to establish operations there. If you are a lender in India, the good news is that you will soon have a way to capitalize on one of the most vibrant and fastest growing economies in the world.

I checked the website. "Up and running" does not mean that you can register as a lender or request a loan so far. In fact borrowers will not use the website in the Globefunder India process:

While in the U.S. lenders can access borrowers directly, in India the sheer size of the lending market and the regulatory environment necessitate a slightly different approach. In partnership with global managed services provider Intellecap and some of the leading banks in India, GlobeFunder India links lenders and borrowers through a network of well-established Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs).These MFIs are rated based on their credit worthiness similar to individual borrowers on the U.S. GlobeFunder marketplace, and these MFIs in turn work with individual borrowers through their extensive on-the-ground networks.

According to Globefunder there is an unmet loan demand in India of 40 billion US$.

If you are an Indian resident and use Globefunder India, please share your experiences in the Globefunder forum of Wiseclerk.com Thank you.

Globefunder opens for borrower’s loan applications

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Globefunder is now open for loan request by borrowers (minimum credit score of 640 required). The signup for individual lenders at Globefunder is still "coming soon". 

A Columbus Business First newspaper article gave more details a few days ago: 

Interest rates for borrowers on GlobeFunder range from 8 percent to 20 percent. GlobeFunder makes its money by charging a onetime 1.75 percent fee to borrowers on their loans, and charging lenders 50 to 100 basis points of their investment over the 24- to 60-month loan term, Decio said.

A basis point is one-100th of a percent.

GlobeFunder is responsible for servicing, collecting and, if necessary, selling nonperforming loans to debt collection firms, Decio said. Continue reading →

Impact of Kenya’s crisis on p2p lending operations

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The unrest after elections in Kenya might also to some degree impact operations of Kiva and MyC4 which are funding p2p loans in Kenya. As Jessica Jackley Flannery of Kiva reports operations of the local MFIs in Kenya have been interrupted:

The situation on the ground appears to vary widely from community to community. However, one consistent report is that business is not operating as usual; most MFI operations have been interrupted or stopped altogether in the last week, whether due to imminent danger in their region or the general disruption in daily life caused by turbulence elsewhere. Thankfully, as far as we know, none of our partner MFI staff have been hurt. Unfortunately, due to the magnitude of the situation, we anticipate that many entrepreneurs will have been displaced, hurt, or otherwise adversely affected.

Please be patient as this situation unfolds. We expect possible disruptions in our Kenya MFI partners’ operations as the staff on the ground recover.

On MyC4.com the local provider Growth Africa Capital writes from Nairobi, Kenya:

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that the Kenyan elections didn't go a smoothly as we had all hoped and has resulted in a lot of unrest, violence, destruction and even deaths.

As I type (noon, 2nd January) things are slowly getting back to normal in Nairobi. The situation is also improving in Mombasa, though we are yet to get the same good news from the central Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza provinces.

We should have a full overview in terms of the wether any of the opportunities funded via MyC4 has been affected by the unrest by Monday (7th January).

Once safe to do so, we will look at the areas in Nairobi affected by the unrest and wether affordable funding will make a difference in the affected people's lives in terms of re-establishing their businesses. So stay tuned for opportunities that will help get Kenya and its enterprising people back to normal – your investment may make a huge difference.

While the situation in Kenya is somewhat unclear, the crisis is already impacting Uganda's economy. MyC4 only recently started in Kenya. The majority of loans are to entrepreneurs in Uganda. 
Ronald Isabirye of the local provider in Kampala, Uganda about the consequences: Continue reading →

Prosper raises fees

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Effective today Prosper.com has raised the closing fees for borrowers:

…The rationale behind this increase is to enable us to better cover our administrative costs and bring our fees more in line with the market. We have endeavored to continue to keep the fees very straightforward for our borrowers.

The origination fee schedule for borrowers of first and second loans will be as follows:

AA 1.00% (no change)
A 2.00%
B 2.00%
C 3.00%
D 3.00%
E 3.00%
HR 3.00%

…

Origination fees paid by existing borrowers and for listings that have already been created will not be impacted.