Last updated: 11 February 2023
We've added new sites to our ratings pages
Some loan originators have set up P2P funding sites to help fund their lending operations. Some of these P2P sites sit within lending groups (such as Twino, Kviku, and Robocash). Others have set up sites through a partnership (such as between Moncera and Placet Group).
Below we present the key financial information for each loan originator, and our rating scores for each. Our methodology is the same as used in our Mintos, Peerberry and Viventor ratings pages. Some loan originators appear on Mintos already, and therefore our scores are the same as can be seen on our Mintos ratings pages.
Key financial information
| Site | Loan originator | Reporting period | Loans | Equity | Profit - latest | Profit - prior year | Profit - 2 years prior | Audited? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twino | Twino | Dec 2020 | 28.5 | 16.5 | 7.4 | 5.7 | 6.1 | ✔ |
| Viainvest | Via SMS Group | Jun 2022 | 30.5 | 4 | 2.2 | 2.2 | -0.3 | ✔ |
| Robocash | Robocash | Jun 2022 | 197 | 109 | 29.1 | 30 | 24.5 | ✔ |
| Moncera | Placet Group | Jun 2021 | 47.9 | 24.5 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.1 | ✔ |
| Kviku | Kviku Group | Dec 2021 | 83.3 | 13.9 | 10.1 | 1.7 | 0.8 | ✔ |
| Esketit | CreamFinance | Dec 2021 | 35 | 14.7 | 3.4 | -0.8 | 0.9 | ✔ |
| Afranga | Stikcredit | Jun 2022 | 13.2 | 10.3 | 4.7 | 2.7 | 2.3 | ✔ |
Loan originator rating scores
| Site | Loan Originator | Profit | Capital | Size | Disclosure quality | Track record | Total | Last change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twino | SIA Twino | S | ||||||
| Robocash | Robocash | 12 | 13 | 16 | 15 | 16 | 72 | -2 |
| Moncera | Placet Group | 15 | 18 | 15 | 15 | 16 | 79 | 0 |
| ViaInvest | VIA SMS Group | 11 | 7 | 13 | 14 | 14 | 59 | -4 |
| Kviku | Kviku Holdings | S | ||||||
| Esketit | CreamFinance | 14 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 67 | +5 |
| Afranga | Stikcredit | 15 | 14 | 11 | 14 | 14 | 68 | +3 |
Our thoughts on the loan originators
Robocash has established a P2P site in Croatia to fund its global lending operations. The key lending operations of Robocash are in Russia, Kazakhstan, Spain and the Philippines. Results over the last 3 years have been spectacularly strong. The company has grown quickly, been profitable, and maintained a strong balance sheet. We are impressed with what they have achieved so far. The results published by Robocash have been audited by KPMG and Grant Thornton. We discussed them recently with the Robocash CEO here. Robocash plans to IPO soon, and has recently raised $US 8 million of equity in a pre-IPO capital raise. That extra capital is good news for Robocash P2P investors as it provides extra strength and size to the Robocash balance sheet.
One important thing to highlight following the outbreak of military activities by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022 is that no loans offered on the Robocash website are Russian. While the Robocash group does have a large lending business in Russia, this is not funded via P2P. The Robocash group is headquartered in Singapore, and deposits made by investors go into a Latvian bank account and then to the various loan originators outside of Russia.
We have however downgraded our score for Robocash. Why? The potential for serious sanctions against Russia creates some additional uncertainties that cannot be ignored. It is difficult to predict how the situation will develop, and if there will be any unexpected impacts on groups with exposure to Russian operations. Our score for Robocash is now down 10 to 72.
Placet Group has been operating for 15 years. It operates in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. The company has a strong track record, consistently making profits while running with a conservative funding structure. The company makes good use of technology, and the management team communicate well. Placet Group has established a partnership with P2P site Moncera, which mainly lists loans from Placet Group companies. Placet has been reducing the number of loans it lists on Mintos, and we would not be surprised if it stopped listing loans on Mintos during 2021. The company is currently our second highest rated loan originator in Europe, scoring 79
Afranga is the brand new P2P site created by the Stikcredit group in Bulgaria. Stikcredit has stopped placing loans on the Mintos platform to focus on growing Afranga. The biggest downside about Stikcredit is that it is only a relatively small lending group. Positive factors are its conservative funding structure, and its history of operating profitably (including throughout the Covid-19 crisis). It has also made an effort to improve its financial reporting, with audited financial statements and investor presentations now available. All loans come with a buyback guarantee. Afranga has typically offered investors strong interest rates up to now, which has been popular with investors, and some times has led to a shortage of loans being available to invest. It is not clear to us why the company has decided to pay such high interest rates to P2P investors. However the loans made by Stikcredit appear to have an average interest rate of around 100% so the company can still pay this and likely make a profit. Following the release of the first half results for 2022, showing a half-year profit of €2.3m, and a continued conservative balance sheet structure, our rating for Stikcredit has increased from 65 to 68.
Via SMS Group has been operating since 2009. It is based in Latvia and lends in 8 countries. It is another consumer finance lender that makes strong use of technology, and has performed well in recent years. It made a small loss in 2020 due to the impact of Covid, but it has now announced (unaudited) profits of €2.2m for 2021 and first half 2022 profits of €1.1m. In its June 2022 results Via SMS Group disclosed that its equity had been reduced to €4m (from €8m). Presumably this relates to a dividend that it paid but this was not explained. The resulting higher leverage that the business is operating at has led us to cut its score for capital levels, and our overall score has now fallen by 4 to 59.
Esketit is a fairly new P2P site from the lending group Creamfinance. It offers loans from Creamfinance as well as startup companies in Jordan and Sri Lanka that are owned by the Creamfinance founders. Creamfinance has been operating since 2012 and operates in 5 countries. It made a small loss in 2020, however in 2021 it made a record profit of €3.4m. Cream has a sensible balance sheet structure and is one of the better quality lenders active in the P2P space. Since launching Esketit, the rates offered have been strong - 12 to 14%. Our score for Creamfinance is 68.
The Twino group has been running its own P2P site for many years. Their P2P site has now become one of the largest European P2P sites. Twino's key lending markets are Russia and Latvia. It closed down its Kazakhstan operation in 2020. It has always been very difficult to understand what has really been going on within the Twino group over the last 4 years. There have been years with massive losses, big profits, closures of subsidiaries, restructurings, management changes and a lot more. However the recently published 2020 annual report seems to show that Twino was returning to a more normal operating state, with a profit of €7.4m. However the outlook for the Twino group is now very uncertain following the sanctions placed against Russia and the impact on the economy and the depreciation of the Ruble. In December 2020 (the last available financial report), 54% of Twino's loan portfolio was located in Russia. The euro value of that loan portfolio is now highly uncertain, and Twino has stopped making principal repayments to investors in Russian loans on the Twino platform.
As a result of the likely high impact of the Russian sanctions on Twino, we have temporarily suspended our ratings for the lending group, and note that the risks for Twino investors have grown significantly.
Kviku has been operating since 2013. It lends in 6 countries, and its key markets are Russia and Kazakhstan. The Kviku Group has performed very well since the outbreak of Covid-19. It has found ways to continue to grow while managing the risk of its loan portfolios effectively. The end result is of this has been very strong profitability - with a profit of €2.9m for the first half of 2021. That is very impressive for a relatively small lending group like Kviku. Kviku offers its loans on its in house P2P site Kviku Finance (where bonuses and higher rates are often available), as well as Mintos, Viventor, Iuvo and elsewhere.
Since the outbreak of military action between Russia and Ukraine, the risks of investing into Russia have increased significantly. There have been strong sanctions against against Russia, including the blocking of SWIFT wire transactions. The Russian authorities have also blocked companies from purchasing foreign currency. This will strongly impact the ability of Kviku to repay investors. The depreciation of the Ruble against the Euro will also create issues for Kviku.
As a consequence, unfortunately we don't think that Kviku is a viable platform for P2P investors currently and have temporarily suspended our rating.
All content published on ExploreP2P is for informational purposes only and is subject to the terms and conditions outlined on our legal page.
I’d love an update here. <3
Looking forward to an update as well. There are newer number for newly all originators availabe.
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ViaInvest removed the buyback button on the credit lines without prior notice. Pending payments have been introduced and 90% of refunds are currently unpaid.
New report from Creamfinance :
https://blog.esketit.com/creamfinance-2021-audited-financials-are-published/
Report visible after login:
https://esketit.com/loan-originators
Thanks again Osmium – all updated now.
Zaymer (Robocash Russia) Q1 2022 results are out – big write offs but still managed to turn a profit https://www.e-disclosure.ru/portal/FileLoad.ashx?Fileid=1749245
Thanks Hugo we updated the page today. Profits fell a lot in Q1. They also seem to have made a big dividend payment too – we have asked for more information about that.
Lendermarket is not only Creditstar anymore. A new loan organisator came to Lendermarket: Credory.
What do you think about Credory?
Another Bad Luck event for Robocash: Sri Lanka has defaulted on their foreign sovereign debt, just after Robocash started to offer loans from there.
While it happened quick enough to avoid big current investments (only 0.2% of their customer portfolio, less than one week of interests) this is a whole branch that will likely disappear, hurting their business I guess. At least a little. What about another score update?
Hi Jerome. Thanks for your incisive comment as always. Yes economic conditions in Sri Lanka are very difficult now due to fewer travellers (Covid) and higher fuel and other costs. Any quality lender should take this into account when deciding when and if to lend to someone (particularly which industry they have employment in). The sovereign default does not necessarily mean that all the Robocash borrowers will default. The sovereign default has been long expected and is not necessarily a bad thing as it will give the government an ability to restructure its costs and have IMF oversight. As you say it is very small for Robocash but we will keep an eye on it and ask them for a comment on the impact.
Oscar,
You have a small mistake about Stik credit: In Bulgaria there is ARP cap of 50%, not 100%.
Dear
After evaluating all the possible options and working closely with the Russian loan originator, we have come to the most optimal and sustainable approach to our investors in the current geopolitical situation. An agreement has been reached that the repayments of the Russian loans will be paid no later than after six extensions and up to 61 delay days. These changes will come into effect during the first part of the next week.
How will the repayments work for the Russian loans?
•
Russian loans will be bought back by compensating both the principal value and any accrued interest as soon as the loans reach six extensions and 61 delay days.
•
Before buyback these loans will be extended to the maximum possible due date which is the aforementioned 6 extensions. If on this due date the Russian loan originator is still not able to transfer the funds, then the delay days are started to be counted.
•
Interest repayments will continue to be accrued daily and paid out as per usual on a monthly basis.
•
We remind you that the Russian principal repayments remain to be affected due to sanctions against Russia, including its isolation from the global payment networks. Read more on this in our previous post.
•
This is a temporary solution until the payments from Russia normalize.
Let’s take a look at an example with a Russian loan that is extended already 3 times and has a due date of 21.03.2022:
1.
As the aforementioned changes go into effect – the loan’s due date is extended 3 times by 30 days to 21.06.2022. This is the maximum amount of extensions possible as there already were 3 extensions.
2.
You receive the next interest payment on 21.03.2022 and continue to do so on a monthly basis until the principal repayment is made.
3.
The loan’s due date is reached on 21.06.2022 and if there still are issues with transferring the funds by the Russian loan originator to Latvia, then the delay days are started to be counted.
4.
On 61st delay day, the Russian loan is bought back and investors receive both the invested principal amount and accrued interest.
Important past events
•
On the 24th of February 2022, Russia started an act of war by taking military action against Ukraine.
•
On the 26th of February 2022, the TWINO team took the first steps to protect the investor interests by starting a gradual reduction of the Russian loans listed until no new loans were listed as of 8th of March 2022.
•
On 9th of March 2022, TWINO was forced to suspend the principal repayments of the Russian loans. The interest repayments continued to be covered on a monthly basis.
•
TWINO’s secondary market for Russian loans remained and still remains open for the whole time.
•
The Russian loan portfolio accounts for 19% of all loans on the TWINO platform. The other 81% of the investor portfolio is not affected in any way.
We trust that this is just the first positive step to ensure successful repayments of our investors’ existing investments in Russia. Our goal is to continue to search for additional solutions so that the invested funds would be repaid as soon as possible. You will be the first ones to hear more whenever we have more information to share.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.
Best regards,
TWINO Team
6 extensions of 30 days plus 61 ‘delay days’ = 241 days, then buyback is supposed to occur. I see my oldest outstanding Russian loan was due 13.01.22. So under the above promise, repayment should have taken place 11.09.22. Didn’t happen.
Esketit is wrong. Score is 62 not 52 as appears below.
In my opinion 58 is too low for Twino.
Rgds
Thanks Payesman – our score for Esketit got upgraded and we forgot to update the commentary. What score would you give Twino? We agree their recent results were good, but they have had some issues in the past which is why their score is lower than would be expected. If their 2021 results are strong again we will definitely upgrade their score.
>>The key lending operations of Robocash are in Russia, Kazakhstan […]
Considering the situation in Russia (tension with Ukraine) and KZ (riots) isn’t Robocash score worth an update?
I agree. In the CEO interview (https://explorep2p.com/robocash-news/) they said: “For instance, we aim the become a #1 lending company in Russia …”. Now when you look at their site, they don’t have any Russian loans (https://robo.cash/loan-originators) and under Loans Funded by countries (https://robo.cash/about) there is 0.24% in Russia.
What is the current situation with Robocash and Russia? Are they still somehow connected? What happened with their ambition to become #1 in there?
Hi JMN and also ‘Investor’. We’ve asked Robocash to clarify whether investors have potential exposure to Russia, given that the group has operations there. They have told us that ‘As you know, Robo.cash the platform is a part of international holding Robocash Group. It is headquartered in Singapore with Robocash PTE Ltd. being the holding company. The money invested on the platform goes to the platform’s bank account in Latvia and is then sent to respective accounts of loan originators whose loans investors have purchased. Since the platform has no loans proceeding from Russia, the money does not go to this country. Therefore, none of the money invested on Robo.cash is in any way transferred to or from Russia, and is not affected by any political tension.’ We will update the commentary on the page, and will also adjust the score to reflect that the overall group does have some exposure to Russia.
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Hi there,
I would like to see Esketit added in the list.
Any thought?
Thank you,
Emanuele
Good suggestion Emanuele – we’ve added them today. Thanks, Oscar
Lendermarket (Creditstar) has ranked 72. Creditstar have good country diversification and i bet their business work. But do you see more risk about low Equity? Reading balance sheet 66% of equity is in stock value and rest are earlier profits? If you calculate it Issued capital 21 000,
Mandatory reserve 325 and Voluntary reserve 2 606 and Retained earnings 9 597. I am sure this is quite normal but with creditstar real earned equity is really low.
Huge risk of paying investors money back if there is big problems with business?
Hi Antonio. On paper the Creditstar financial position looks good. Growing profits and over €38m of equity. What many people are waiting for is for the KPMG audit of the 2020 financials to be completed. We have promised this for quite a long time now… If there are no major changes to the previously published results this will create a lot more confidence among P2P investors.
viventor turned into scam – without any agreement to new t&c from investors, they set up the “Account maintenance fee – 10% with a minimum of €100” and also 1.5€ withdrawall fee – its because they didnt get the proper licence… buth this behavior is unbelievable.
Hello,
why is Afranga grey in your List?!
Hi Bieri – that was just a small technical issue, hopefully fixed now.Thanks for highlighting it.
Hi. Possible to get iuvo group to here too?
Hi. Any thought about Lendermarket financial report with 400’000 EU loss, and Credistar still not publishing KPMG report promised un August?
I second that! Grant Thornton did the Audit, and the Equity is negative 200K € after the loss. What is your opinion?
Lendermarket is an important funding channel for Creditstar. We are not too worried if the P2P platform itself makes a small loss / has negative equity as we would expect that to be covered by Creditstar if needed. What is more concerning is the delay to the release of the audited financials by Creditstar. It is disappointing that they are delayed as investors have been very keen to see these. We are keeping a close eye on this.
My guess is that the audit report won’t be published soon…
hi, could you please check Bondster?
Twino report 2020:
https://www.twino.eu/en/about/financials/
Thanks Osmium – we’ve updated the page and comments. Seems to be much less turmoil at Twino now than in the past which is good.