What is the PeerBerry? Review of this P2P Platform
n order to diversify my portfolio and reduce the level of risks of my investments, I am always looking to invest in new Peer-to-Peer lending platforms. In this article, I will review PeerBerry, a Peer-to-Peer lending platform based in Latvia. I followed the platform for a while and saw that it was getting rapid momentum during the past months before this review, so I really wanted to try it out. As usual, I will review the platform by investing my own money, and tell you what I think about the platform and share the results from my investments.
As you can see, I activated all countries, with interest rates above 11%. I also chose all terms for now, as even real estate loans have a maximum term of one year. However, I might restrict this in the future in case they introduce loans with longer terms. Once I activated the auto-invest portfolio on PeerBerry, it quickly invested all the money I deposited in loans that matched my criteria.
The person-to-person loans, or p2p lending, are not exactly novelty. They have been in a lot of countries in the world for more than 10 years, with great volume and yielding much more than the basic interest rate, but also with a lot of risk in the way (such as default on payments or even the breaking of the trading platform). It is now an industry of over $ 1 trillion in loans. Typical profitability is in the range of 3 to 20% per year.
Why invest in p2p to earn 12% per year when Direct Treasury pays this without risk?
I do not want to get the wrong message here. I'm also a fan of the Treasury. But I always start from the point of view of portfolio allocation. First, how much hard currency do I need to have in my wallet (for example, 10%). Then what am I going to do with this strong coin? put under the mattress, put in the bank abroad at 1% per year, or risk earning 12%?
Or from another point of view, the p2p abroad is application in strong currency and low inflation. In Brazil, real interest rates are 4% per annum in the Treasury. Not bad, but how about diversifying a little? Because we are a closed country, it is common for us to be 100% exposed to Brazil risk, not only our financial investments, but our assets, employment and income.
Due to even the little discussion of the subject in Brazil, let's talk here about the p2p loans, the common characteristics, how much they yield and how to apply. Let's share some of the experience of two years as an investor on some platforms in Europe where there is a wide range of options for easy application and good return. These are the platforms with which we operate: Lendy, Assetz Capital and Funding Secure in England; Mintos, Peerberry and Grupeer in Latvia; Bondora, Iuvo Group and CrowdEstate in Estonia.
