Peerberry is a slick new European P2P investment site offering loans from the Aventus Group. We speak with CEO Aušra Čiuplienė
Mintos is currently totally dominant in the European P2P investing space. However many investors have been looking to diversify their investments across other platforms. And in the case of the Aventus Group, they decided to stop listing their loans on Mintos and create their own platform instead. That platform is called Peerberry, which launched earlier this year.
We are impressed with the quality of the site that has been built by Peerberry. It has one of the best designs and aesthetics of any P2P site currently operating. Beyond that however, it functions as expected and provides a good quality of information.
So why is Peerberry worth considering? It currently offers loans from Czech Republic and Poland, with interest rates of 12%. The loans are short term (generally 30 day loans) and come with 60 day buyback guarantees. The Aventus Group, whose subsidiaries are the loan originators, has been operating for 9 years and is growing and profitable.
As explained by CEO Ausra Ciupliene below, there are also plans to offer loans from other lenders soon. We think this is a very positive development, as multi-lender platforms allow investors to increase their diversification, and find new opportunities.
We think that the combination of Peerberry’s high interest rates, buyback guarantee, great website, and successful operating company makes it one of the better platforms to have launched over the last 12 months. It will fill a role for 2 main types of investors. Firstly, for experienced P2P investors looking to diversify across multiple platforms. Secondly, for investors looking for a simple, easy to use site that offers high returns and a buyback guarantee provided by a profitable and growing lending group.
To visit Peerberry click here.
Interview with Aušra Čiuplienė, CEO of Peerberry
Ausra, why did you decide to start Peerberry.com? What is your background?
I’ve been in the banking and lending industry since 2010. During this time, I have successfully set up and launched over 5 different loan products in 3 markets with a heavy focus on risk management. I could say that PeerBerry was a very natural progress from both my experience and Aventus Group’s needs. While setting up new products for Aventus Group in different markets I’ve been always looking for ways how to fund more loans. After rapid development of technologies, possibility virtually to identify borrowers and lend them money online, the environment was ready for revolutionary products like PeerBerry where all participants win. More borrowers can get loans as more loan originators have funds to fund them and private investors earn relatively high interest on their money.
You used to offer loans on Mintos in the past. Why did you decide to stop placing loans on their platform?
Yes, Aventus Group sold their loans on Mintos for 3-4 months back in 2016. While we liked the idea and saw great potential, at that point the group wasn’t expanding to new territories. Hence Aventus had enough income to slowly grow without external investment. As a result, they stopped placing loans on Mintos.
Please tell us a little bit more about Aventus Group. Who owns them? Is it a profitable company?
Aventus Group is privately owned innovative and successful payday lender holding leading positions in Poland, Latvia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Moldova. It has been profitable from the very first year of operations in Lithuania in 2009 and it is only growing in numbers and markets each year. The group is currently profitable. Aventus Group has a very strong management team with a heavy focus on Fintech and innovation. They constantly optimise and improve the customer experience, credit score ratings and internal infrastructure. In 2018 the group is planning to open new markets, introduce new products and offer more investment opportunities for PeerBerry clients.
What type of loans can be purchased on Peerberry? What interest rate can investors earn?
As of today, we offer to invest in short term (up to 45 days) Czech and Polish loans in euros. This type of investment comes with 12% annual interest rate. After great start and interest from investors, we are now working on introducing new loan originators, long term instalment loans and short term loans from other countries. I see this happening in 2018.
Do the loans have buyback guarantees? What percentage of the loans do you expect to default?
Currently every investment is secured by buyback guarantee, this is an agreement with our loan originators. Under our terms loan originators are obliged to exercise buyback if a borrower delays payments by more than 60 days. From Aventus Group practice, we expect that defaulted loans, overdue for more than 60 days, will not reach 10%.
There are a lot of sites with similar investment opportunities – what do you think the advantages are of investing through Peerberry?
It’s not a secret that Aventus Group has offered loans through Mintos so we have done our analysis well and wanted to bring simplicity and clarity to this type of investing. We have focused our efforts to deliver very simple yet effective product with top notch auto invest feature that can do all the work for investors. Our aim is to bring alternative investment to as many people as possible and Aventus Group as our main loan originator brings a lot of trust and credibility.
We understand that many experienced investors like to diversify their portfolio and play around with different sites. Once we have more diverse types of loans PeerBerry can easily become a favourite platform for those who appreciate simplicity and efficiency.
Is there any cash drag for investors (i.e can they usually invest all the funds they have put on the platform easily)?
Ever since PeerBerry launched supply of loans has been greater than demand, so investors can easily invest all their funds without any cash drag. To make sure that this doesn’t change as investment demand grows, we are opening up PeerBerry to loan originators outside of the Aventus Group. We have already secured couple deals with credible loan originators from across Europe and will announce them once all the details are finalised. So stay tuned…..
What information do you provide about each loan?
Every loan on PeerBerry has loan amount, term, interest rate, country of issuance, and borrower details – city, age, gender, number of loans taken, date when borrower became a customer of loan originator. With the growing number of loan originators we will be adding information about them too.
What are your plans? How big are you hoping to grow Peerberry?
Plans are huge, as I mentioned before, we’d like to bring alternative investment to as many people as possible, to educate more people about benefits of alternative investment and become a go to platform for investors who appreciate simplicity and efficiency. I see PeerBerry as one of the top 3 platforms for alternative investment in Eastern Europe and beyond. Hence, we are working on bringing more types of loans, more countries and more loan originators.
Ausra thanks for your time, and good luck with the project
To visit Peerberry click here.
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I could not find income statement neither balance sheet from Peerberry or Aventus web site? Wonder if somebody has found those.
I’m not confident they are profitable.
Hi Seppo – we launched the Peerberry lender ratings today that has the financial information. Check it out.
You have in this blog a fantastic Mintos ranking. Which score would you give to Aventus? It would be interesting to know, so we could invest on Peerberry with higher guarantee.
Thank you.