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Saving Stream Review – My Experiences

wiseclerk

Saving Stream LogoExactly 4 months ago I deposited money at Saving Stream and started lending. Saving Stream is a UK p2p lending marketplace operated by Lendy Ltd. that facilitates bridging loans, that is short-term loans for typically less than a year, secured by commercial property. Investors can see valuation documents for each listed loan. Saving Stream operates since January 2013 and with 25 million GBP loan volume originated since launch it is one of the mid-sized p2p lending sites in the UK.

Saving Stream is open to international investors; you don’t have to be a UK resident. Investors are paid 12% interest, accumulating starting at the day they bid on a loan. The interest is paid monthly (starting with drawdown); the principal amount is repaid at the end of the loan term. Saving Stream does not charge investors any fees.

Since I don’t have a UK bank account I used Transferwise when depositing money in order to save on bank fees. For larger amounts (approx. >1,000 EUR) it might be even more efficient to use Currencyfair so check that too.

Some of the smaller loans (e.g. 200,000 GBP) fill within hours of coming onto the marketplace. I do like that I can deposit money (Cashier>Deposit>Step 1) and bid with this money without having to actually wait for the money to arrive (which usually took 1-3 days with Transferwise).

Saving Stream Loan Listing
Screenshot of Saving Stream loans listed

The Saving Stream p2p lending marketplace is very simplistic and easy to handle. There is a view of the live loans. Only the green ones have amounts open for bidding. The secondary market does not have a seperate view but is integrated into the live loans view. There are no fees and markups/discounts when buying and selling on the secondary market. So when a loan part is listed for sale, the amount is just added to the available amount for this loan. Continue reading →

Credit Suisse NEXT Investors Leads 165M US$ Investment Round in Prosper Marketplace

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Prosper Marketplace, Prosper Logowhich operates a privately held p2p lending marketplace, today announced a 165 million US$ Series D financing, led by Credit Suisse NEXT Investors, part of Credit Suisse Asset Management. Additional participants included J.P. Morgan Asset Management, SunTrust Banks, a subsidiary of USAA, BBVA Ventures (BBVA’s representative office in San Francisco), Neuberger Berman Private Equity Funds, Passport Capital, Breyer Capital, and others. The latest funding will support the company’s continued growth, expansion, and development of a national brand as it builds new products and services for the marketplace’s borrowers and investors. This round put the valuation of the company at roughly 1.87 billion US$.

The funding comes on the heels of a record quarter, with nearly 600 million US$ in loans originated through the Prosper platform, up 200% from the year ago quarter. The significant growth is a true indication of the increasing mainstream acceptance of marketplace lending.

“This investment is a testament to the efforts of our entire team in changing how people experience access to credit,” said Aaron Vermut, chief executive officer at Prosper Marketplace. “The explosion of interest in P2P lending demonstrates that a shift is in progress in the way that consumers borrow and lend. This new funding will help us scale the business to meet this growing awareness and demand.” Continue reading →

International P2P Lending Sites – Loan Volumes March 2015

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In March Lendinvest reported a surge in loan originations and had an exceptional month with more volume originated than Ratesetter or Funding Circle. I do monitor development of p2p lending figures for many markets. Since I already have most of the data on file I can publish statistics on the monthly loan originations for selected p2p lending services.
Investors living in markets with no or limited choice of local p2p lending services can check this list of marketplaces open to international investors.

p2p-lending-volume-03-2015
Table: P2P Lending Volumes in March 2015. Source: own research
Note that volumes have been converted from local currency to Euro for the sake of comparison. Some figures are estimates/approximations.
*Prosper and Lending Club no longer publish origination data for the most recent month

Notice to p2p lending services not listed: Continue reading →

P2P Lending in Slovakia

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This is a guest post by Roman Feranec, CEO of Žltý melón (full bio at the end of the article)

Slovakia is an Eastern European country with 5.5 million inhabitants. The country borders with Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Ukraine. Regarding its real GDP per capita exceeding 10 thousand EUR, it is one of the most developed countries in eastern European region. Slovakia is a NATO and EU member and in 2009 the country joined Eurozone and started using EURO as its currency.

Peer to peer lending, also known as Marketplace lending, started in Slovakia at the end of 2012. In just two years of operation it proved that it could be an interesting financial alternative with valuable benefits for people in need of money, as well as for people looking for a stable and good appreciation of their savings. This all despite the fact that Slovaks are generally more conservative than their peers in western countries and banks in Slovakia were almost no hit by the recent financial crises.

Slovakia FlagThe Slovak market of unsecured consumer lending reaches a volume of approximately 150 million EUR in new loans every month. There is a big competition between 12 retail banks keeping the average interest rate at about 14 % p.a. P2P loans at the moment represent just a tiny fraction of the market with 0.1 % market share. This can also show a huge growth potential for this alternative.

The first and so far the only domestic P2P loans provider is called Žltý melón. The company was set up by a team of people with long-term experience in banking and financial industry. Žltý melón was launched at the end of 2012 and since then it has provided about 2 million EUR of loans with current volumes of 160 – 200 thousand EUR of new loans per month. It provides ordinary unsecured retail consumer loans – purpose or non-purpose. Recently it has also introduced loans for financing real estates with a guarantee for investors covered by real estate and also company guarantee of major development company. The new product is one of the outcomes of a bigger partnership between Žltý melón and local leading residential developer Cresco Group. Continue reading →

Funding Empire Now Offers Asset Backed Loans

wiseclerk

Funding Empire LogoFunding Empire entered a cooperation with the Business Lending Exchange (BLX) to offer asset backed loans on the marketplace. These new asset backed loan investments will be backed by realisable security and go through BLX’s proven and experienced credit assessment process – they will be available to Funding Empire investors from tomorrow.

Parag Patel is managing director of Funding Empire, a growing peer-to-peer business lending platform. Announcing the new product, he said: ‘This is the first step in an ambitious plan to deliver a number of different peer-to-peer investment products that we have designed to cater for all kinds of investors and their varying risk profiles. Asset finance offers funding for businesses and is a long established traditional finance product backed by tangible security. In this new model our lenders will receive monthly capital and interest repayments, unlike many other asset backed lending repayment structures that defer payment of capital and sometimes also interest, until the end of the loan term. We have had huge demand for a non-property based, asset backed product that provides monthly income – and we’ve responded to that demand.‘

Loans under this model will be for a maximum of 50,000 GBP over a maximum term of 3 years providing monthly capital and interest repayments to lenders. Loan requests will typically last between 5-7 days and will operate as fixed rate auctions. They will end either when the loan request is filled or it expires. Loan parts from this model can be traded as normal on our secondary loan market. Continue reading →