Is it advisable for newbies with no investment experience to try P2P Lending (e.g Funding Societies)? Anyone using the platform can share their experience (returns, default rates)? Able to recover your capital if there is default?

Hi there, sorry for our delayed response as this question just came to our notice. Our response time on live chat and email is usually prompt!

Firstly, thank you for your interest in a platform like Funding Societies. While we can’t comment on whether or not our offerings are right for you, we would like to share with you that our investments start from as low as S$20. Interest rates and tenor range from 2-18% and 1-12 months respectively, depending on the product.

Our overall platform default rate can be found on our statistics page https://fundingsocieties.com/progress and our Singapore default rate can be found here https://fundingsocieties.com/progress/singapore.

For low risk investors we have the Guaranteed Returns Investment and Guaranteed Property-backed Investment products where both principal and interest are guaranteed by our sister company Funding Societies Capital. To date, repayments for these 2 products have always been prompt. Although these are low yield products, they are also less risky.

The Property-backed Secured Investment product is also relatively low risk. It has a property that the issuer pledged as collateral with us having 1st charge on it. In the event of a default, we would have the 1st rights to the sales proceeds when the property gets liquidated to recover the funds for our investors as well. To date, we’ve yet to have any defaults under this product.

Our term loan and invoice financing products have higher interest rates but tend to be riskier.

We hope that the information is helpful in your investing journey. Please feel free to start a live chat with us at https://fundingsocieties.com or email at [email protected] if you have any further queries.

I am researching the market. But i think it is quite tough right now.

With GDP droping and so many people saying that the worst is yet to come, I am not really sure if businesses can survive this market - let alone repay the loans.

I'm sure a lot of the more experienced investors may say otherwise, but maybe its good to give this a miss for now. I will probable hold cash or invest in the stable stuff - like savings or insurance plans :-)

No. I would avoid it. Go for Roboadvisers instead.

Speaking from experience, I would sugget saying away from P2P for now.

If it was a booming economy, i feel that it may be worth exploring. In view of the bad market, who knows long covid will last? And if covid lasts for an extended period, you need to ask yourself whether those companies will be able to pay.