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Post by kilozulu on Nov 30, 2017 8:07:44 GMT
I wonder what lessons can be drawn from this case. From this short article it seems that it was basically an employee level insider fraud creating in essence fake loans that investors bought. Debifo (on Mintos) was hit recently with apparently outsider fraud, with some company listing major amount of fake invoices, details were discussed on Facebook fellows page. Omaraha had a wave of fake Latvian borrowers early this year, a seemingly clear outside scam. My only takeaway is the smaller originator the higher risk of such events, as bigger organizations tend to have more layers of verification, procedures etc, the bureaucracy in a positive sense.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 29, 2017 18:16:18 GMT
Something shady happened they are trying to cover up. Either that, or the CEO realized Twino is going to and is bailing. I've seen this happen to few other startups in the past. Jevgenijs was not a CEO, he was a "Platform Lead", essentially an advanced version of head of investor relations. CEO and owner is Armands Broks, and he hasn't indicated he would like to throw in a towel. Plus platform had became quite mature versus the business need of Twino as a lender, thus understandable the position was becoming less interesting and important.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 25, 2017 18:06:11 GMT
My understanding is Mintos has got to break-even during 2017 already, but I can't find the source, maybe I heard it informally somewhere. The fact that they dropped secondary market fee seems to signal they are not running out of cash. Btw that has significantly boosted secondary market trading volumes, very good for liquidity. Strangely 2mln Skillion Ventures investment in Mintos is not showing in their 2016 accounts. Share capital increased only 250k. The 2m apparently were subscribed as new shares but not immediately paid in, with Mintos having an option to call the money to be paid in when needed. Due to good revenue growth they did not need the full amount.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 25, 2017 10:32:42 GMT
Basically like any other p2p platform, they don't want to be held responsible in case any company goes bankrupt. Of course they will try to hold some responsibility as otherwise they basically go bankrupt as well. as far as I know any p2p investment is 'risky' in that you always keep the claim right on any loan, but when mintos or any other p2p platform goes bankrupt, Mintos is the one responsible for the buyback guarantee. Good luck claiming the debt from multiple 'small' loans from different individuals. So in other words it's buyback guarantee for as long as Mintos or any other p2p platform with buyback exists and when they go bankrupt, it collapses like a house of cards. The only reassuring thing is that Mintos and any other platform rake in tons of interest on any loan provided on the platform. Let's say, you receive 12% interest and mintos receives 20% interest, making it somewhat unlikely for Mintos to go bankrupt. Ofcourse they still have maintenance costs, employee wages, marketing costs etc. It will be interesting to see when the first bigger platform collapses. How it will be dealt with and if p2pinvestments buyback platforms will survive at all when it does happen. Or what happens when another economical crisis hits. My instinct tells me to just invest and pull-out before any Bondora type horror story happens. Based on 2016 accounts Mintos is a losing money business (200k loss), it is kept alive by cash injections from shareholders. Their income from commission was only 0.5mln , that is around 1% percent of the outstanding loans. The high interest charged to borrowers is received by the loan originators. My understanding is Mintos has got to break-even during 2017 already, but I can't find the source, maybe I heard it informally somewhere. The fact that they dropped secondary market fee seems to signal they are not running out of cash. Btw that has significantly boosted secondary market trading volumes, very good for liquidity.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 25, 2017 8:12:58 GMT
I don't see that the annual reports give much clarity to those points. I also fear that the utter lack of response from anyone representing Mintos tells us something. Actually having them give some sort of answer to those questions posed by a journalist might get us somewhere. Yes that person only wrote a couple of blog posts. So, so.. I can draw all manner of inferences in directions good and bad. I don't think that tells us much These blog posts were already discussed on this forum with Martins from Mintos providing answers. p2pindependentforum.com/thread/6835/warning-invest-mintos-before-reading The same discussion happened also on Facebook fellows page, if I correctly remember it was even more detailed. My takeaway was: - there is one overlapping minority shareholder (Kesenfelds) between Mintos and several originators. With that being only minority position still much better than most other platforms where originator is fully owned by same owner and platform is effectively just a business unit of originator, not structurally independent entity. - it was a false statement, Mintos is not liable for buyback, each originator is. So risk is originator default, not Mintos. See Eurocent defult case study explorep2p.com/eurocent/- and the other worrying assertions in that anonymous blog point didnt rise my alarm as well. Thought its just a defamation attack by a competitor, was suspecting the creative guys with the longest track record in Baltics
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 24, 2017 8:15:06 GMT
Right, with this structure I will treat the platform and any money I put in as pure gambling. Gamble, win, win, win and leave before they pull the curtains down. So it will be a small amount, with the added fun of buying discounted "buy-back guarantees". What do you mean by "this structure"? To me Mintos seems lika one of the most solid EUR platforms, hence the question.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 22, 2017 16:28:46 GMT
Hello Forum We have an upcoming interview arranged with Mintos CEO Martins Sulte. What would you like to know? We will put some of the questions posted here to him. when do you expect to publish the interview?
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 22, 2017 14:15:52 GMT
Normally it goes slow in December with a pick up in mid/end Jan (so we lose about 6 weeks) similar at the end of July until end of August. Not bothered to check figures just 4+ years of experience. So you over lend in November as much as possible and over lend in July to end up with a good average. Do you mean loans to business or loans to consumers, or both? Because for business lending this makes perfect sense, but not sure about consumer lending.
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General P2x Discussion
seasonality
Nov 19, 2017 16:23:41 GMT
Post by kilozulu on Nov 19, 2017 16:23:41 GMT
Has there been any analysis of seasonality in p2p borrowing? I would assume December weak and January strong, also September strong with parents borrrowing to give kids money for school college. But is there any data? I heard from some people there that in personal lending Decmber is a killing, everybody borrows to spend on trinkets, September strong as well. Summer is weak.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 16, 2017 19:49:10 GMT
Having followed the subject reasonably closely, based on public info, my takeaway is: - Jevgenijs was a decent business development guy / ex-startuper, a relatively expensive employee - he led build-up of the Twino platform as a financing tool for Finabay/Twino group, solely or majority owned by a smart fellow called Armands Broks - the platform has matured and achieved what possible of its goals, to provide a needed scale of relatively cheap funding (10% p.a. as stated average in newsletters) for the group - limited platform options for growth - can't get cheaper than 10% p.a., investors are stupid but not that stupid, no need for more investors as Twino is not able to rapidly grow loanbook. So it is basically just maintaining the status quo, for now. - no real point in such circumstances to keep there an expansive busdev asset, so assume Jevgenijs simply got bored and left to do something more challenging. Or maybe Armands wanted to cut the fixed cost.
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 16, 2017 13:42:34 GMT
This was in investor newsletter, repost below. [...] Dear kilo,
This month we have reached an important milestone, EUR 200 000 000 in loans funded through TWINO Investment Platform. This autumn also marked the second anniversary of my tenure as TWINO Investment Platform Lead, so I believe it’s a great moment to reflect on the things we have achieved together to date, and share what’s ahead of us.
We have grown to one of the leading peer-to-peer lenders in Continental Europe in terms of both monthly and total volume of loans funded through the platform; We have opened new, previously inaccessible, markets for European P2P investors, including, Georgia, Russia and Kazakhstan that allow investors earning premium returns; We have built a 10,000+ member community of loyal investors, who have believed in our vision from the early days and continue to support our development; And, most importantly, despite the rapid growth of origination volumes, we have consistently delivered double-digit returns to investors, or 11.79% p.a. to be precise.
We are happy with the results we have achieved with your support to date; however, we do not plan to stop here, and set the following goals for the upcoming year:
Further grow our origination volumes in order to achieve a consistent monthly level of EUR 15-20 million, while maintaining profitability; Maintain existing profitability level for investors by focusing our resources on the emerging markets that provide premium returns, such Russia and Kazakhstan; Continue exploring and testing new markets and lending products, both in Europe, as well as in Asia, in order to satisfy the growing demand from investors; Strengthen our team to provide even better user experience and service for both, the borrowers and investors that we serve.
Our plans are ambitious; however, I am confident that the team, that we have built over the years, is well positioned to execute on those with excellence. Therefore, I will be stepping down from daily operations of TWINO Platform, and my role will be taken over by Roberts Lasovskis. Over the last year, Roberts has been in touch with most of our investors; thus, he genuinely understands our challenges and has the necessary experience to lead further growth of TWINO Platform.
Sincerely,
Jevgenijs Kazanins
P2P Platform Lead
on behalf of the TWINO team
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General EUR P2x Discussion
omaraha
Nov 14, 2017 6:39:40 GMT
Post by kilozulu on Nov 14, 2017 6:39:40 GMT
I'm guessing something is there and omaraha could be good. It's just that the extremely long loans and the higher default rate is killing the platform. So far I've invested 100 euros to test it out, but within 3 months, 2 slovakian loans have defaulted 2 are well on their way to default, but let's see how it will develop. Estonian loans are doing fairly well so far, but payback is long and tedious. Investing on omaraha feels very much like gambling. The warranty fund is like a baby version of a buyback guarantee. Put in 10 euros, get 6 back. Still not sure whether to exit or to keep on testing just for fun. Overall I personally wouldn't invest any more at the time unless I find some golden formula. I see some people raking in 20% interest on Omaraha and I'm very interested in your magic recipe for this platform. Slovakian loans for Omaraha were a failure same as for some other platforms. Esrtonian loans used to be great, but now the rates have dropped due to influx of nerw investors too much to be interesting anymore. Effective rate you would get at current rates on good Estonian loans after subtracting writeoffs would be in range of 10-15%, so no more advantage versus say Mintos 14% bybacks. My legacy portfolio is still bringing in 20%, true, old good days
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Post by kilozulu on Nov 2, 2017 19:27:29 GMT
Hello Forum We have an upcoming interview arranged with Mintos CEO Martins Sulte. What would you like to know? We will put some of the questions posted here to him. When will Mintos add some analytical functionality, like abilility to see own portfolio statistics segmented by loan originator, type, etc? And when Mintos estimates to break the 1bn loans funded mark?
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Post by kilozulu on Oct 24, 2017 5:44:13 GMT
Are any of these loans with buyback guarantee? Yes, there are both personal loans and car loans available with buyback at 13.5% in euros. there was even 13.7% euro buyback loans recently.
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Post by kilozulu on Oct 19, 2017 10:59:10 GMT
Last few days have shown an increase in interest rates for buybacks into a long not seen teritorry. Previously buyback loan rates, except Mogo, were capped at 13-13.1% pa. Now Mozipo, Lendo and Aaasa have all offered 13.5%-13.7% p.a It may be that October is a good months for pay-day lenders and they need more liquidity.
I don't see similar hikes in any of the other, single originator, platforms though.
Interesting if this is an aspect specific to Mintos - that presence of many originators at the same transparent platform forces them to act as a players in a competitive market. Looking at whats happening on single originator platforms, it seems they have at least to some extent loyal investor money pool, part of which is maybe in cash-drag mode, thus these platforms are able to take as much liquidity they need with much less fluctuations in interest rates they give.
If the above hypothesis is correct, then Mintos rates would over time fluctuate more in both directions, because keeping rates somewhat stable, not cutting agressively when markets slow, makes sense only if you try to keep your investor pool loyal. Btw this cutting aggressivly sub-hypothesis matches Twino experience some time ago.
Any views?
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