hello! Yes i think it is ok. p2p lending is run by experienced team who will screen all the loans before they take them in and open the loans to public investors. im not in the p2p business but i think this is the process: 1) loan application by SME from P2P 2) P2P platform screens, does audit of the SME's business and determines risk and suitability + loan quantum 3) If business is sound, P2P approves the loan, if it is a bad business, P2P platform wont approve 4) Once loan approved, P2P platform publishes the loan and avails it for investment by public investor 5) public investor can take a look at the summary of the SME, the risk assessment and decides if he wants to invest in the SME's loan. So you can choose which business loan you want to back. And you can choose the amount. It is also in P2P platform's interest to ensure that the default rate is very low so that investors will continue to invest, because a bad apple will really break investor's confidence in the P2P platform. Funding society's default rate is <2% overall so is actually not that bad. For me, ive been on Funding society for almost 1 year now, no defaults so far. Returns should be around 7-9% after deducting the fees by funding societies. Overall experience is not bad, would personally recommend it for investors with medium to high risk profile. :)

For P2P loans, you are earning interest income. That is taxable and need to be declared in iras. Dividends and capital gains are not however, P2P loans are not considered capital gains or dividends. https://www.iras.gov.sg/IRASHome/Individuals/Locals/Working-Out-Your-Taxes/What-is-Taxable-What-is-Not/Interest/

I'm Cassandra, the community specialist from CoAssets. Allow me to give you the objective view of my findings. All calculations except for Capital Match are according to MAS's standards. Rate of returns per annum in 2018, ranked according to weighted average returns) 1. Minterest: 3.5-24% (Weighted ave: 12.95%) 2. CoAssets: 9-10% (Weighted Ave: 9.91%) 3. Moolahsense 5.90%-16.82% (Weighted Ave: 9.9%) 4. Funding Societies: 6.51-17.79% (Weighted Ave: 9.32%) 5. SeedIn: 7-20% (Weighted Ave: 8.33%) 6. Capital Match: 15-20% APR (Weighted Ave: unknown) Default rates (measured as non-performing loan rate beyond 30days) in 2018, ranked in descending order 1. Moolahsense: 14.82% 2. Minterest: 0.59% 3. Funding Societies: 0.47% 4. SeedIn: 0.32% 5. Capital Match: 0.20% 6. CoAssets: 0.00% Note that stats are according to internal standards and not MAS's criteria. Even after 90 days, Capital Match does not classify it as a default, unless the company is in the windup, has undergoing lawsuits, or the director(s) declare bankruptcy. Furthermore, Capital Match does not have an updated statistic based on 2018; thus this internally calculated rate is for 2017. In summary, the services these platforms provide are similar. All these platforms provide opportunities for retail investors to invest in a variety of projects. The difference is that CoAssets is the only listed online funding platform which means that they're obliged to give transparent performance updates twice a year. Their rate of returns, default rates and profits are under the scrutiny of the Australian exchange and the public, bare for all to see. As for the rest, the data provided above was based on the information provided on their website. Another factor to consider is hidden costs like service fees or surcharges within the rate of returns. For CoAssets specifically, the investors get the full interest back. For others, for example, the interest rate may be 20% but they may charge a 1% service fee resulting in an actual return of 19% only. I'm open to discussing any of the mentioned points should someone else's findings be different. I hope this helps. References: MAS guidelines: http://www.mas.gov.sg//media/MAS/Regulations%20and%20Financial%20Stability/Regulations%20Guidance%20and%20Licensing/Securities%20Futures%20and%20Fund%20Management/Regulations%20Guidance%20and%20Licensing/Circulars/CMI%2027%202018%20Controls%20and%20Disclosures%20to%20be%20Implemented%20by%20Licensed%20Securities%20Based%20Crowdfunding%20Operators.pdf Moolahsense: https://www.moolahsense.com/statistics/ Minterest: https://www.minterest.sg/statistics Funding Societies:https://fundingsocieties.com/progress/singapore SeedIn: https://sg.seedin.tech/statistics CoAssets: https://coassets.com/asx/about/ Capital Match: https://lending.capital-match.com/statistics.html

Hey there! This is Yingying from Funding Societies. Unfortunately we have regulatory constraints to openly share referral codes :( Do still sign up with Funding Societies though! We have promotions which are exclusive to our investors on a regular basis.

I have been using Funding Societies for a almost a year now, the default has gone down from 1% to 0.8%. As for my investments that i have done, it has all been paid but some have late payment. It’s best to put small amounts in every company listed to diversify and reduce your risk. SSB/SGS, are very low risk as they are issued by the government. I would say P2P is not a very good alternative to SSB/SGS as P2P involves much more risk, put you savings in SSB/SGS, as for P2P set aside a small amount for high risk investing.

Note the risk of the campaign for the least to the most : secured by property &lt; invoice finance &lt; Term finance. (1) this determines the interest rates. The higher the interest rates, the higher the risk. I managed to research that FS management will do a round of company checks before approving the campaign. It is more or less if you are comfortable with the borrowers. I personally feel that credit score (2) is the least important. There is a reason why SMEs seeked p2p (poor credit history - rarely borrow money from banks.) (3)Guarantor(great especially there is) (4) Lending history with FS 5) Loan purpose 6)payment behavior (attitude of borrower) 7) Risk snapshot 8) ensure they have relatively healthy cashflow or /and net worth I am still learning to read the financial ratios. Need help with it if anyone knows. Would do a research on it when I have 6months - 1years of experience ( about 100 campaign closed) So far understand inventory turnover for non service companies

In essence, P2P lending serves a market of companies that cannot get financing from banks because they are (a) too small (b) too weak financially or (c) too new (no track record). Basically, it would be too risky for the bank to take on these firms. Regardless, a financial crisis is likely to affect all companies, but of course at different extents. During a financial crisis, debt financing would be more challenging to get from the banks, especially with one like the '08 crisis that was related to credit strenghts and ratings. I suspect these 2 phenomenon might happen... (1) More firms move to P2P to seek debt financing . Firstly, because banks are not financing them anymore, and secondly because their cashflows are affected by the crisis such that they would need alternative sources of funding to continue operations. (2) Liquidity for financing drops . The bearish market sentiment will likely cause more retail investors in the p2p space to invest less also. This means that more loans would go unsubscribed and borrowers may not be able to seek the financing that they require In essence, demand for p2p financing increases (more firms seeking loans) while supply of p2p2 financing decreases (fewer retail investors). This will probably cause loans to go unsubscribed , but would likely have the impact of causing interest rates to rise based on the forces of demand and supply (so that fewer firms turn to p2p and more retail investors turn to p2p) Cost of debt would therefore increase for firms, while investors have more alternatives to seek high returns.

Hey there! I’m Cass, the community manager from CoAssets! There are many crowdfunding types, hence the definition of “good” may be quite subjective. 😅😅 In terms of returns, you would like to note that the average returns of P2P platforms in 2018 range between 8.33% to 12.95% which you might consider "good". The breakdown of weighted average returns in 2018 (based on platforms), is shown below: 1. Minterest: Weighted ave returns: 12.95% 2. CoAssets: Weighted Ave returns: 9.91% 3. Moolahsense: Weighted Ave returns: 9.9% 4. Funding Societies: Weighted Ave returns: 9.32% 5. SeedIn: Weighted Ave: 8.33% Interestingly, when you compare that against the STI, which gave returns of -6.5% in 2018 (source:https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/sti-sgx-singapore-stocks-total-returns-2018-11083026) it is actually not that bad. If you measure “good” in terms of default rate, you would be able to see the range of default rates (measured as non-performing loan rate beyond 30days) in 2018, ranked in descending order below: 1. Moolahsense: 14.82% 2. Minterest: 0.59% 3. Funding Societies: 0.47% 4. SeedIn: 0.32% 5. CoAssets: 0.00% While there are some platforms giving near 0% defaults, other platforms have defaults that are as high as 14%. These are just some measures - however if you are an investor, these are probably some of the key things you will look out for in ascertaining what a “good” platform is. I hope this answers your question :)

Initial deposit if $500. Minimum investment amount differs for each campaign, but $20 is the lowest.

You can consider using Funding Societies (FS) as they have a pretty good track record of on time repayment and low default rate. You can check out their statistics and our community's experience with FS in the link below. As for regular investments with FS, you can make use of their Auto-Invest function which allows you to choose the type of loan and amount that you would like to invest. Then when a new loan is available and matches your criteria, funds will be allocated to that loan automatically. You can also choose to opt out of it. Read more here - http://nerds.fundingsocieties.com/launching-auto-invest.html https://fundingsocieties.com/progress https://seedly.sg/reviews/p2p-lending/funding-societies