So far there are no p2p lending services active in Spain. Manuel Ángel-Méndezwrote a comprehensive article on the situation in Spain for El País. Some of the key facts from this article:
Giles Andrews, of Zopa, confirms: "We have had conversation with several companies in Spain"
Pol Navarro, director of innovation at Banc Sabadell,thinks that p2p lending will not be a short term threat to banks. "it is to early to tell if p2p lending will be a successul business model in Spain"
Banking organisations expect, that p2p lending will profit from the introduction of a personal identification number (digital DNI) which will be introduced within the next 18 months. Fernando Alfaro of Bankinter sees to chances for p2p lending services: low costs of entrance (IT costs) and millions of immigants in need of loans, that do not have a credit history
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.
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 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 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".
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 →
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 →
