Bondora review – My results after 6 years

This Bondora review is 100% unbiased and based on my own experiences after six years of investing.

What is Bondora?

Bondora is a P2P lending platform based in Estonia, and one of the largest platform in Europe. The consumer loans that Bondora offers are marketed in Finland, Spain and Estonia through a fully digital process supported by advanced credit analytics and in-house servicing. It has historically financed the loans it originates by selling the associated receivables to a retail investor base drawn from 40 countries around the world.

Bondora focuses on unsecured consumer loans with principal amounts of EUR 500 to EUR 10,000 and repayment terms ranging from three to 60 months. Bondora is licensed as a credit provider by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, the primary regulatory body in Estonia governing and overseeing banks, credit providers, credit intermediaries, insurance companies, insurance intermediaries, fund managers, investment and pension funds, investment firms, e-money institutions and payment service providers.

The company has a strong executive and operations team with backgrounds in consumer credit, retail banking and asset management. Aside from Management and Supervisory Board members, key shareholders include subsidiaries of Valinor Management LLC, a US-based private investment firm with more than $3.4 billion under management, and Global Founders Capital GmbH Co. Beteiligungs KG Nr.1, a subsidiary of Global Founders Capital, one of the largest shareholders in Rocket Internet.

Bondora’s Facts and Figures

• Company name: BONDORA CAPITAL OÜ
• Address: A. H. Tammsaare tee 47, 11314 Tallinn
• Founded: In 2007 by Pärtel Tomberg, Martin Rask, Mihkel Tasa.
• Established in 2009;
• Country of origin: Estonia
• 11-year track record
• P2P business area: Consumer Lending
• Over 145,000 investors;
• Loans issued: Over €395M;
• Interest earned: €49M.

Website’s ease of use

Bondora’s platform is available in 23 languages: English, Eesti, Español, Suomi, Deutsch, Pусский, Čeština, Français, Norsk, Italiano, Svenska, Dansk, Polskie, Nederlands, Português, Slovenčina, Български, Hrvatski, Ελληνικά, Magyar, Latviešu, Lietuvių, Română and Slovenščina.

Platform features

• Manual investing;
• Auto investing;
• Bondora Go & Grow;
• Portfolio manager;
• Portfolio manager pro;
• Secondary market.

Deposit & Withdrawal Process

Depositing funds from your Bondora account is done in 3 easy steps:

1. Transfer money to your Bondora account from your personal bank account with a bank transfer, Transferwise, Revolut, VISA or Mastercard payment or SOFORT Online Payment.
2. Transfered funds will be available for investments on your account usually in 1-3 banking days.
3. After you have received the funds and added to your account, Bondora will send you an e-mail about it.

Withdrawing funds from your Bondora account is even easier. Just click the “withdraw funds”, enter the preferred amount you’d like to withdraw and wait 1 to 3 business days. There is no minimum withdrawal restrictions and no additional fees or commission for withdrawing the funds – except maybe from your own bank.

Bondora’s strategy

Bondora strives to provide borrowers with a seamless and fast user experience, fair rates and transparent costs, and personalized offers. Bondora focuses on middle-income consumers who need mid-sized, mid-term financing that neither banks nor payday lenders are able to provide due to regulatory, balance sheet or technical restrictions.

Geographically, Bondora targets euro area countries that have not developed competitive credit markets owing to their size (e.g. Finland and Estonia) or adverse macro events (e.g. Spain), and hence have lower consumer debt to GDP ratios than elsewhere in the region, according to ECRI Statistical Package 2015 data.

Bondora is growing fast–for a reason

Interestingly enough, while these online marketplaces originally came about to meet the needs of individuals who were looking to either borrow or invest, they have attracted the interest of institutions seeking to invest money in assets that help them to diversify their portfolios and enhance aggregate risk-adjusted returns. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to see why P2P volumes have expanded dramatically in recent years.

What is Bondora Go & Grow?

Go & Grow works as easily as (if not easier than) traditional investment methods whilst giving you an impressive return of 6.75%* p. a. You simply add money to the account, then you can view and track your return on a daily basis. What’s more, there is no minimum term to hold your investment— meaning you can liquidate your account with ease. Sounds like your cup of tea? There’s more.

For years, there has been a huge investor demand for a product that is simple, has a reliable net return, and is offered by a trusted platform. Go & Grow opens up peer-to-peer (P2P) investments to the world. It offers key benefits that our existing products (Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Pro) do not offer. More specifically, it appeals to those who want “no-hassle” investing with low risk, faster liquidity, and automated features.

Go and Grow is for the dreamers. When you create a new Go & Grow account, you have to set a goal and a purpose. The purpose of your investment may be a large purchase such as a wedding or a new car (lucky you!), a trip around the world, early retirement, or something completely unique. Our goal-setting feature is there to help you determine how much money you want to accumulate and by what date. Go & Grow will keep you updated as to whether you are on track to achieve your goal or if you have fallen behind.

Reasons to use Bondora Go & Grow

The P2P industry has gained enormous popularity over the past few years. However, some investors have felt excluded from the incredible opportunity due to thinking they lack enough experience. No matter your experience level, Go & Grow offers market-leading benefits for all:

• 6.75%* p.a. return
• Faster liquidity, meaning you can cash out your investment with minimal effort
• Lower risk than our existing products, achieved via a diversified portfolio of investments backed by advanced and reliable technology
• You can transfer your existing Bondora portfolio to Go & Grow
• You can set up an auto-transfer from your existing portfolio to Go & Grow, which is useful if you want to reinvest your cash flow into a place where you have quicker access to your money
• There is a flat withdrawal fee of €1, regardless of the size of the account
• No annual management fees
• Share your account access and invest with people you trust to achieve a common goal
• Ideal for beginners, as no previous investment experience is necessary
• No secondary market transactions required
• Automated features

What is the difference between Go & Grow and Bondora’s existing services?

A fundamental difference between Go & Grow and Portfolio Manager or Portfolio Pro is the liquidity. If you’re looking for a short-term product in which you can liquidate your investment quickly, this is difficult to do with our existing products.

When you use Go & Grow, you do not invest directly in specific loans—instead, you invest only via Bondora and we take care of the heavy lifting. If you already have investments with Bondora, you have the option to sell this portfolio to your Go & Grow account (this is discussed in more detail below). A downside to using Go & Grow compared to our existing products is that it’s likely you will achieve a lower net return (6.75%* p.a.), dependent on the strategy and filters selected in Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Pro.

What is Bondora Portfolio Manager?

Portfolio Manager is a semi-automated service you can use to invest in peer-to-peer loans with Bondora. You don’t need any financial knowledge or other previous experience since it does everything for you. It’s a service which manages everything to do with your investments, which makes it perfect for people who are new to investing in P2P, who are unsure of how to get started, who want to spend as little time as possible managing it and who want to have everything set up quickly.

What is Bondora Portfolio Pro?

Just like Portfolio Manager, Portfolio Pro is a semi-automated investment service from Bondora that allows you to manage your investment in peer-to-peer loans precisely. It offers more settings than Portfolio Manager, where you would almost get by just by clicking the start button. Portfolio Pro is used by investors who have a clear idea of ​​the structure of their portfolio and want to more control over the type of P2P loans that they invest in. In the beginning, you’ll have to set up your criteria. From then on, Portfolio Pro takes care of the investment process on its own.

Bondora Main Competitors

The platform’s main competitors include Mintos, Omaraha, Bondster, Twino, Fast Invest and FinBee.

My 6 year experience/story with P2P platform Bondora

I have always been intrigued by passive income and in the idea of letting money make money.
Therefore at the age of 21 I started investing. The date was August 29th, year 2014.

My first ever P2P investment was at an Estonian crowdfunding platform called Bondora.
At that time, Bondora was gaining popularity by the day and everybody talked about it. Due to it’s increasing popularity, many investors made huge investments at the platform.

People keep saying that, how could they start investing, when they do not have loads of extra money? Well look, everybody have to start from somewhere. I started with just 10,1€ … How about that? In just 2 months, my little 10 euros in the system, had already generated 0,45€ of interest.

I was hooked and started putting little bits of money into the platform, earning me more interest.

Yet everything wasn’t that beautiful as I thought it was. Over the years Bondora gained negative feedback on not being 100% transparent with the loans they give out and too many loans were defaulting. Especially the ones I thought were “solid” loans.

The biggest mistakes I made before starting investing at P2P platforms were:

As I was just starting my investor career, I did not do any research on any matter. I had close to no idea what I was doing.
So there I was, a young investor with close to 0 experience and knowledge about investing at a P2P platform. I invested into Spain HR loans and thought that my investments were safe, but just after few months those Spain HR loans went bad. Eventually those loans defaulted and they were the sole reason I had to exit Bondora with a loss.

But these easy mistakes can be easily avoided if you do your own research and learn from others mistakes. You might even have a pretty decent return on investment if you do things correctly.

I’ve even seen some of the investors use a very aggressive strategy by buying late or defaulted loans with high discounts and have had luck with them. But this requires a very high level of expertise of particular subject and you must 100% know what you are doing! There are also loans available with lower risks, but still I would rather choose any other P2P platform with a buyback guarantee.

Read more about my first investments at Bondora –
https://financefreedom.eu/when-and-how-i-started-investing/

Bondora review: Conclusion

CONS:

• Bondora has NO buyback guarantee.
• Platform has a notoriously high ratio of defaults and late loans, especially Spanish loans.
• Actual returns are far from the expected or displayed ones.
• Bondora issues the loans, leaving a high risk if they go bust.
• As with any investment, your capital is at risk and the investments are not guaranteed.
• Weird Debt Collection Agency (DCA) fees

PROS:

• Bondora has a 11 year track-record, serving customers since 2009.
• Start with a minimum of €1.
• Secondary market available.
• Offers automated money-making options such as Bondora Go & Grow.
• Bondora has beautiful statistical analyses at your fingertips.
• Market-leading investment services.
• Bondora has a simple user interface.
• Over 145 000 investors have signed up, who have earned more than 49 million euros of interests.

This concludes my Bondora review.

Bondora promo code

BONUS: If you are still determined to invest at Bondora, you might want to use my referral link to sign up to Bondora, you will receive 5€ right after you have signed up!

To start investing at Bondora, just simply CLICK HERE!

My Bondora portfolio overview – https://financefreedom.eu/bondora-portfolio/

Where else to invest?

For those looking for other similar peer to peer platforms to invest, you may want to read some of my other reviews. There are many peer to peer lending and investing platforms currently available and you can diversify your interest income by using several of them simultaneously, just like I do.

You can consider some other peer to peer companies checking my Mintos review and Estateguru review.

Please share your opinion

Did you like this Bondora review? Are you already an investor at Bondora? Please share your thoughts on the platform in the comments section below. Does it meet you expectations? Are you satisfied with the returns? How much of your portfolio would you be willing to invest into a P2P platform like Bondora?

My portfolio:

Read more at – https://financefreedom.eu/my-portfolio/

*As with any investment, your capital is at risk and the investments are not guaranteed. The yield is up to 6.75% p.a. Before deciding to invest, please consult with a financial advisor if necessary.