duck
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Post by duck on Mar 21, 2015 8:17:56 GMT
Anybody investing with Bondora will know their current 'issues'. The much publicised new servers appear to have had little effect. Promises have been broken. Functionality has disappeared at the blink of an eye. ..... and I won't mention the Portfolio Manager* or the current payment fiasco.
I stopped re-investing something over a month ago and cannot see any reasons to start again.
So what does the future hold? Will the problems be overcome?
*As I was typing this I received the following Email
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JamesFrance
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Port Grimaud 1974
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Post by JamesFrance on Mar 21, 2015 9:14:49 GMT
Plenty of Estonian loans available now which must mean others are not investing. The trouble is it is hard work because so many of them are cancelled. Our statistics show high levels of repayment which make the defaults look smaller, but most of those are cancelled loans and not repayments at all.
It all seems complete chaos there now witha determination to expand at whatever cost to investors.
The removal of country choice from the portfolio manager, after providing loans to new countries with shocking default rates, is probably losing them many investors. Hiding their heads in the sand is not helping.
I really hope they come up with some proper solutions to all the current problems.
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kermie
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Post by kermie on Mar 21, 2015 9:57:50 GMT
I have just submitted my first request to withdraw almost 50% of my (small) holding in Bondora after 12 months of OK euro returns, but terrible (negative) currency-adjusted sterling returns.
I started to sell out the lower-quality loans that I could about a month ago, deciding that it was better to take an exchange-hit now (at what could easily be a pound/euro trough - not ideal) and instead re-invest it in the UK where I can get a relatively predictable return rather than letting it sit idly in the vague hope of a reversal of euro/pound fortunes. The proportion of loans which are 60+ days in default is now getting rather too high for my liking, and I really don't have the time for the active management that this requires.
Had I been living in euroland, I might have been tempted to stick with it for another year.
I am getting increasingly concerned for the viability of Bondora too, given the obscenely high default rates in non-Estonian loans reported on this forum. I suspect their backers have simply pushed too hard too fast for expansion....there may be a single currency, but there's 20+ different regulatory environments, which I see Bondora are struggling to get to grips with.
I can imagine that Bondora will continue for quite some time yet - sucking in the unassuming newbie for a while, continuing on a merry-go-round of lenders-in-lenders-out..."pyramid scheme" springs to mind.
I just put this one down to experience!
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duck
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Post by duck on Mar 21, 2015 11:19:25 GMT
....... Our statistics show high levels of repayment which make the defaults look smaller, but most of those are cancelled loans and not repayments at all. ..... I too would like to see matters sorted, I would really like to see Bondora succeed long term. That said a lot has to be changed. The example you have given above JamesFrance is a good one as to why I feel the need to keep 'comprehensive' spreadsheets - I need to know my real rate of return.
I've noticed that the csv files that you used to be able to download from 'My Investments' have gone in the last couple of days which makes keeping track even harder ...... especially since the beta downloads have more than a few bugs!
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Post by xyon100 on Mar 22, 2015 15:30:46 GMT
It's a mess, that's for sure. My 2000 Euro experiment has concluded that I will leave the 2000 there to stew, but no further new funds. A pity, I have a lot of idle Euro. What it is, about a 15 percent drop in the value of the Euro against the Pound? Hard to see how any UK based investor would have found Bondora worth the trouble in the last year or so. The portfolio manager cannot be relied upon, manual investing is a PITA. Plus, I don't trust their reported return and quite frankly I cannot be arsed with working it out myself. I noticed yesterday that Bondora were lending my money to one person with a princely 40 Euro a month left over as disposable income. Nah, no more Bondora for me.
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spyrogyra
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Post by spyrogyra on Mar 22, 2015 16:41:48 GMT
All signs of approaching disaster were written on the wall 2-3 months ago. I wrote adio Bondora appr 2 months ago. I was lucky I managed to receive back in my UK accounts around 90% of my investments. On paper I have to receive hundreds of pounds more from lates and defaults but I don't expect any. And when they quit trading, that will throw a cloud over the P2P lending industry.
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Post by xyon100 on Mar 22, 2015 18:37:40 GMT
Looks like you were getting out just as I was getting in. More fool me. That said, I don't expect any serious loss, but this really is starting to look like a disaster caused by Bondora greed. How the hell can they lend other people's money to people with 40 Euro disposable income? Oh, because they can....
It's not put me of P2P though. The Bondora model is very different to most P2P or P2B models in the UK.
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Post by reeknralf on Mar 22, 2015 20:22:25 GMT
As an investor, I agree with all the criticisms of the recent changes. But as a capitalist, I have every sympathy for Bondora's desire to leverage the successful business they have developed, to fuel expansion. There's unfortunately a fundamental conflict of interest in P2P, whereby investors want to maximise yield and platforms want to maximise volume.
Either they will find enough passive investors to replace the relatively active investors they previously recruited, or they'll be forced into a u-turn. My money is on the former. They have promised an API to allow active investment, but it hasn't appeared. My guess is it won't unless they struggle to fund loans.
Talk of Bondora's demise is more than a little premature.
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koba
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Post by koba on Mar 23, 2015 7:14:11 GMT
In the FWIW category I put small amounts into 500 random Bondora loans (basically took a small chunk of everything indiscriminately - I know, I know). Took a little over 3 months to build up the test positions and switched off new investment last September, well before the recent 'problems'. Was going to wait a year before reviewing but interim results after 6 months seem interesting enough to share.
Of the loans still outstanding as of today:-
35% of the loans are now 60 days overdue with outstanding principal within 2% of the initial amount - i.e. these loans seem to have defaulted immediately.
15% are overdue
50% are current
I have received about 8-9% of the initial amount invested in interest income
Bondora reports my annualised rate of return as 16.5%
I will analyse the results in more details after one year and see if there is anything I can do to make money (short of individually vetting every loan) but do not personally hold out much hope.
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duck
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Post by duck on Mar 23, 2015 7:18:46 GMT
As an investor, I agree with all the criticisms of the recent changes. But as a capitalist, I have every sympathy for Bondora's desire to leverage the successful business they have developed, to fuel expansion. There's unfortunately a fundamental conflict of interest in P2P, whereby investors want to maximise yield and platforms want to maximise volume. Either they will find enough passive investors to replace the relatively active investors they previously recruited, or they'll be forced into a u-turn. My money is on the former. They have promised an API to allow active investment, but it hasn't appeared. My guess is it won't unless they struggle to fund loans. Talk of Bondora's demise is more than a little premature. I agree fully.
I know lots of lenders want only Estonian only loans but personally I fully support the opening of the other markets (in spite of the eye watering default rates that have been seen), long term you cannot rely on a relatively small market for unsecured personal loans.
Whilst not directly comparable I see similarities to the changes that Zopa made post 'listings' days. Whilst I stayed around (still get a decent return from my remaining loans) for some time, eventually the indecipherable algorithms and the time it took to relend money made me decide that Zopa was no longer for me. As platforms mature the push for passive investors seems to come naturally, I don't have a problem with that, I have a large investment with RS and I know they wear the 'Boring' badge with pride (westonkev posted to that effect) ..... but with platforms such as Bondora active management can make a large difference to your ROI and to do that you need accurate information. It is the availability of this information that exercises me currently. All 'simple' downloads are no longer available so it is a major task to check defaults, sales etc.
I mention 'accurate' figures with an eye to the pending end of the tax year. Since Bondora do not supply a tax certificate the onus is on the investor to produce accurate figures. With the disappearance of the account statement download it is now close to impossible to pull together the figures in a quick and timely manner*. Why do I bother to manage my loans/loan book? Well I like to know the position of my investments and whilst the figures shown on the site may be mathematically correct IMHO figures such as "Annualized net return on investment" are particularly misleading so I have to calc a 'real world' figure. I'm not sure what the FCA would make of % rates such as the "Annualized net return on investment" if they put themselves in the position of a passive investor but I have my suspicions.
All is not lost, if as promised by GO the offsetting of losses is to be allowed against P2P loans the picture at Bondora will become much brighter but there is lots of detail to be sorted before that becomes a reality .......
Agreed.
*I've put new spreadsheets together and I'm extracting interest daily from cash flow, defaults and other info from the beta downloads (buggy as they are) - I have raised this directly with Bondora.
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james
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Post by james on Mar 25, 2015 4:57:55 GMT
I doubt terminal. But consider that over the next few weeks I'm investing around £35,000 and none of it is going out via Bondora. VCT and ISA. VCT being my base comparison/competition that Bondora has to beat. I did my first withdrawing in mid December, done four now, with the ongoing rate being about £1,100 a month coming out.
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duck
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Post by duck on Mar 25, 2015 8:54:10 GMT
Well the statement is working again yesterday, not as a download (hit the .csv and you still get sent to beta downloads) but you can cut'n'paste the info in the same form as previously ....... so back to the original spreadsheets!
Like you james all my re-investment is going elsewhere .....
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Post by lightshiner on Apr 5, 2015 17:27:36 GMT
Oh Dear. I have only just seen this thread. I sent a reasonably large sum to Bondora a month or so back as I like the fact the Euro had moved and figured it a reasonable investment if the Euro strengthened again. How much of a return do we think people are actually getting?
Current 10483.56€ Overdue 2498.71€ 60+ days overdue 9.79€
I am quite alarmed at how high my overdue is as I have only been on here for a month or two. It says I am getting over 15% return but the alarming rate that my overdue have been accelerating is quite worrying. Should I just sit tight? Obviously I bought Euros at a reasonable rate which was partly my reason for investing as a kind of double return if the Euro comes back
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JamesFrance
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Port Grimaud 1974
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Post by JamesFrance on Apr 5, 2015 17:55:48 GMT
From your figures I presume that your loans are not old enough for many 60+ defaults but the high level of overdues is worrying. Quite often new borrowers can be a little late with first repayments, but any over a month late are likely to be bad. Did uou use the Portfolio manager which stopped allowing country choice in January? If so you may have many Spanish loans which most of us are avoiding because of very poor default experience and hardly any recovery. The Bondora return figure is based on the past and not on the future.
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jay
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Post by jay on Apr 6, 2015 13:19:59 GMT
Oh Dear. I have only just seen this thread. I sent a reasonably large sum to Bondora a month or so back as I like the fact the Euro had moved and figured it a reasonable investment if the Euro strengthened again. How much of a return do we think people are actually getting?
Current 10483.56€ Overdue 2498.71€ 60+ days overdue 9.79€
I am quite alarmed at how high my overdue is as I have only been on here for a month or two. It says I am getting over 15% return but the alarming rate that my overdue have been accelerating is quite worrying. Should I just sit tight? Obviously I bought Euros at a reasonable rate which was partly my reason for investing as a kind of double return if the Euro comes back Welcome aboard! You were expecting a luxury cruise on the baltic sea with a 20% ROI like advertised, unfortunatly you are chained with an old french in tattered clothes on the galley and more likely will get a -25% ROI too... Last time i had loan defaulting that fast that were the slowakian loans and some of the spanish loans too, i could be wrong of course but you should check the nationality . Nothing you can do i am afraid, most of them will end up in the +60 days overdue folder wich is according what i read all over the place means write of. You could try to put them on sale on secondary market but no one is dumb enough to buy defaulted loans even with a big discount since theres few hope of recovery. I invested in bondora after reading wiseclerk blog , sounds a serious business , with good practices, alas it looks like it was from an old forgotten golden age and not the same bondora i am dealing with now. They expanded too much into new markets testing with our money it seems. Thats speculation, but what else do we have since they are playing ostrich the head in the sand , and never communicating with us anymore , ignoring boards. Another thing in favor of bondora is the fca regulation, it added a bit of credibility in my eyes. How naive i was , sounds like its very easy to get those licenses theres no control. For example, when you apply to lend money , if the loan is canceled they give you back your own money , its considered as repaid money, wich artifically boost your ROI, so none of the data is of any value. I am baffled those kind of practices are legal... This is my first and last experience with P2P lending , i wont be caught again, will lose already far too much.
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