Funding Societies P2P Lending
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- Claimed in August 2020
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Funding Societies Review 2021
Funding Societies is a debt investment platform specialising in short-term digital financing for SMEs while providing a convenient and short-term fixed-income investment option for investors.
As a platform, they are committed to providing financial support to SMEs, since four in 10 SMEs lack support from financial institutions. At the same time, they provide financial opportunities for individuals and institutions with their fixed-income investment option.
This way, everyone wins!
The majority of Funding Societies’ investments are short-term with a maximum tenor of 12 months. As an investor, you can start investing with as little as S$20. And the investment returns you’re potentially looking at is 7.82% — based on the Singapore weighted average in 2020.
Funding Societies P2P Lending
18% on interest earned
INVESTOR FEES
$20 per campaign ($100 initial deposit)
MINIMUM INVESTMENT
1.26%
DEFAULT RATE (2020)
Funding Societies P2P Lending
18% on interest earned
INVESTOR FEES
$20 per campaign ($100 initial deposit)
MINIMUM INVESTMENT
1.26%
DEFAULT RATE (2020)
4.1
540 Reviews
Service Rating
User Experience
Portfolio Transparency
Customer Support
Quantity of Deals
Quality of Deals
Pinned by Funding Societies
- 09 Apr 2021
Purchased
Funding Societies P2P Lending
[Lending Experience] Background: I have been using the platform since Jan 2021, this was simply to see if P2P lending would be something valuable to add to my portfolio. Depositing process: The process was smooth, the transfer was done accurately since I followed their instructions very carefully. I am IT savvy, so no issues here. I imagine some people who are less careful may encounter some issues especially if they forget to put their reference number. Investment/ lending process: Deals / investment opportunities were available and informed in advance via notification in the phone and via email. I didn't want to push too hard and go for the higher risk/ return opportunities, so I went for generally property backed lendings. Defaults: No defaults so far, no late payments, no problems here. Withdrawals: Withdrawals were smooth, I received my money after about 2-3 days.0
What are your thoughts? - Posted 2d agoWe signed up for the SME credit line. It seemed to be going okay, but then one day they decided to discontinue that product altogether and gave us zero notice about the cancelling of our credit line. They said they would restructure to pay back in 6 month installments (during this time, they would still charge interest even though they cancelled their own product to no fault of our own). I requested for 12 month installments. They said they would get back to me, but didn't reply about that matter for 4 months (meanwhile still asking me to make payments). Finally, they sent a contract for the 12 months installment. No choice. At 6PM on the even of a public holiday, they start whatsapping me from a random whatsapp with no photo demanding payment right then and threatening to charge late fees, even though the contract never states that late fees would be charged on that day. When I enquired, they started threatening to charge the full amount even though I was just asking where it states at what point late fees are charged. Overall, a very unprofessional business that I would advise never getting involved with.
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What are your thoughts? - I wish I can attached a screenshot to show the numbers of 17 defaults I have encountered, each with multiple explanations note but with no proper closure of the “investment failed and losses”. Out of 182, 17 defaulted to a loss of 15% of capital even with 1-2% allocation per loan. There is no transparency of these lending. Eventually concluded this is rather a charity platform rather than p2p investment. The risk of lending money and not getting back a single cents and you don’t know who you lended to…
1
What are your thoughts?
Funding Societies Singapore
05 May 2021
Hi Mr P, we’re sorry to hear that your experience with us hasn’t been ideal. We will require your full name that you’ve used to register for an account with us so that we can give an accurate and thorough response to the concerns on your portfolio.
Even though we are unable to identify your portfolio based on your initial here, our observation is that over exposure into a single or a few different issuers is the main contributing factor to a net loss in investors’ portfolios. Diversifying across loans is important but diversifying across issuers is what helps you prevent against a loss in the event that an issuer goes bankrupt, which affects all of its notes especially in a Invoice Financing Line product where an issuer may drawdown against multiple invoices but within the facility limit.
Investors can avoid over exposure to a single issuer by logging into their investor account and viewing the deal when listed for crowdfunding. Any existing investments with the same issuer would be clearly displayed under ‘Crowdfunding Now’ on our mobile app for investors to evaluate their investment decision. E.g. “You have invested S$X in this SME X times before. Of which, S$X is outstanding in X deals.”
We’d also like to share that as with all financial institutions and even banks, it is not unusual in the industry to experience defaults from issuers. With that said, Funding Societies’ default rate was kept under 2% even through the pandemic last year and we have not experienced a default since May 2020. All our guaranteed and property-backed deals have also been successfully repaid since inception in 2019 and 2018 respectively to date.
If you could also elaborate what “listing is too high level” means, we’d be able to advise further.
Finally, we would respectfully request you to refrain from calling other reviews fake. Different investors may have different experiences on the platform based on loan selection. Should you require an in-depth discussion about your portfolio, we’d be happy to chat via our live chat on https://fundingsocieties.com or email [email protected] where we will need you to identify yourself. Thank you.
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- Posted 15d ago
Purchased
Funding Societies P2P Lending
No prior notice like 2 days prior to notify. This meant I have to park a sum of money here which dont earn any interests. For my 1st investment I set minimum of SGD100 and maximum of SGD500. Robot only allocated SGD100 for a guarantee loan. Since I was not informed BEFORE about this loan, I cant reset my criteria and since this is the 1st time i invested, I managed to get allocated, which meant I might not be allocated any next time as bot tries to allocate with priority to those not selected. For those that dont have time to catch up with their emails, you can get auto allocated before you even read the emails and you wont be able to reject it as its past 3 hours. The 3 hours limit is also not displayed on the loan itself like a countdown clock so minute you received your auto allocate mail u have to quickly look it over to determine whether to reject (and YES no chance to change minimum amount if you like the investment as changes took effect next round). Since there is no time stated on that loan during auto allocation before taking effects, you dont really know how much time is left to really make a decision. I assune its 3 hours from email sent time. According FSC its coz their loans need to be quickly dispersed so cant be like 2 days advance notice for customers to reset their autobot selection to allocated more funds to it. I rather the company practice some leeway to add 2 more days to this dispersement and allow customers to set their preferences Reading some reviews regards Defaults is very very concerning and made me wonder whether just how guarantee is guarantee? 18% commission is quite steep with no way for me to properly setup the funds I wanted to invest during pre-cf rounds. So far NONE of the pre-cf is notified except those that i dont want, revolving credit and invoice backed loans. 3 stars for quite easy to use interface, 18% commission is bit steep would like that they reduce it to 15%. Not being flexible enough to notify for ANY loans investment at least 2 days in advance so that investors can set their minimum and maximum sum to be allocated its very frustrating. FSC should improve on this experience and perhaps freeze the settings eg 1 hour before the system starts allocation or settings done 1hour before the start of allocation is taken in next change. Having a warning message "Note 12345678xxx is now being auto allocated, changes to settings will not be counted" (preferably under "Invest" section has a timer to countdown each note such that investors knew how much time they have to change the settings This is the 2nd time I decided to leave FSC. 1st time I deposited but due to their short notice my deposit was not taken in and I missed the opportunity. Another irritating factor. Investor need this window of TIME to decide to change settings, deposit more funds such that more funds get allocated etc. Since this is my first auto allocation I shall wait till its paid in full with interest in 9 months time, but I have withdraw SGD400 (rest of my SGD500 balance) and will be withdrawing my SGD100 and whatever interest in 9 months time and I wont be back!0
What are your thoughts? - Posted 17d ago
Purchased
Funding Societies P2P Lending
Good platform experience so far, it is even better with Guaranteed Investment Scheme which suits risk averse personnel like me. Good platform and keep going! [User Friendliness]0
What are your thoughts? - Bullshit lending company, avoid at all costs. Don't be fooled by their nice online and app presence. [Risk Assessment] Everything looks good on the report, but in the end still default. They might not have done due diligence. Happened multiple times. So no point reading their report as it doesn't indicate if the companies are able to repay the loan. [Portfolio Diversification] Continue issue loans even when the same companies still owe them money, in the end everything default. [Lending Experience] More than 6% default rate, as compared to 1.5%+ as previously reported on the app. Don't trust any stats from this company. App still shows you positive returns even when unrecoverable loans exceed earnings. [Debt Recovery] Efforts exists but updates are always delayed after the promised deadline. Soon after they just give up on recovery. Still have the cheek to ask us to sponser legal fees via email. [Customer Support] They did have a forum called Crowdfundtalks, but had it shut down suddenly. Probably due to people discussing and questioning the loan defaults on FS. Now all the threads are unsearchable.
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What are your thoughts? - not much investment opportunity and is considered as lesser if compared to the opportunity in Malaysia.
1
What are your thoughts?Funding Societies Singapore
4d ago
Hi Tan Yen, thanks for sharing your feedback and we’re sorry to hear that investment opportunities for Singapore isn’t at the same level as Malaysia.
Malaysia is a much bigger addressable market with dealer financing investments making up most of the deals. As you may already know, this is a Secured product with the dealer’s inventory (car) serving as collateral.
For Singapore, we’ve recently increased the quantum of Guaranteed Returns Investment for Singapore (up to $3 million) as compared to $100k previously. This along with another Guaranteed Property-backed Investment has to date been fully repaid.
Also, with the relaxation of Covid measures and further opening of the economy, hopefully there would be more SMEs who are able to finance with us which would mean more deals for our investors.
We hope that this piece of good news will inspire more confidence and support to continue investing with us!
Please feel free to reach out to us via live chat at https://fundingsocieties.com or email [email protected] should you have any clarifications. Thank you.
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- Posted 19 Jul 2022
Purchased
Funding Societies P2P Lending
[Portfolio Diversification] good choice to diversify away from my current equity investment [User Friendliness] UI is simple & easy to navigate [Risk Assessment] low entry barrier which provide lower risk for each lending compares to other platform0
What are your thoughts? - I have 8 in default all from 2019 Nov up to now, with no payment. Well, they have some useless status on the juridical manager, creditor appeal, or whatsoever. However, as an investor we want solid answers from them if the fund will recover, and if yes when will it be. I am not sure why they take default companies in and drag 3 years with no payment in progress. Not sure how they do their checking on the borrowers. I wonder does the company need to pay back if they are in default? What does FS earn if they are in default? [Debt Recovery] [Customer Support] [Lending Experience]
1
What are your thoughts?Funding Societies Singapore
20d ago
Hi there and sorry to hear about the defaults you have incurred.
We’ll like to clarify the points raised. Defaults incurred back in 2019 have all been labelled as non-recoverable in the Portfolio page. Unfortunately, investors would be unlikely to receive any further repayments from these deals. The repayment notes details the recovery process. To shed some light, Judicial Management is usually accompanied by a Moratorium which is a Court order that insulates the SME from being pursued by creditors. This is vital so as not to frustrate the process while attempting to rebuild the business and restructure the debt.
Our underwriting process collects documents such as the SME’s financials, bank statements as well as invoices and any other types of supporting documents to validate their relationship with their customers. These are carried out to establish the repayability of the SMEs so we do not finance distressed companies (which would fail underwriting).
A default on our platform is defined as 90 Days Past Due (DPD) and this doesn’t absolve the SME of their repayment obligation. Recovery efforts begin even before the default happens and we’ve had cases of partial or full recovery. In the cases of personal guarantors going into bankruptcy, creditors are legally forbidden to pursue the debt and this is one of the reasons why the deal is classified as non-recoverable.
We’ve also structured ourselves in a manner that aligns our interests with investors. Skin-in-the-game is adopted meaning we also co-invest in all of the platform deals so we also feel the pain of loss. Secondly, the only fees we earn from investors happens on a success basis - service fee is only chargeable on the interest earned so if the SME doesn’t pay, we do not earn them.
Should you require any further assistance or have any further enquiries, you may also reach us via live chat at https://fundingsocieties.com or email [email protected]. Thank you.
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How does P2P Investing Work at Funding Societies?
Peer to peer Investment (P2P Investment), also known as P2P lending, is an investment concept where individuals & institutions jointly invest in financing to SMEs and earn returns in the form of interests. Funding Societies connects SMEs sourcing for business financing directly with investors who are looking to participate in P2P Investment as part of their investment portfolio.
Risk Management
Default by the issuer is the primary risk that investors get exposed to with this type of investment. Funding Societies conducts a detailed assessment on the SMEs based on a framework which combines a mixture of hard and soft data including but not limited to credit bureau ratings, bank & financial statements, cash flow projections, site visits, strength of guarantors, marketability of collaterals and business's capacity to repay the facility.
Specifically for Property-backed investments collaterals such as residential or commercial properties owned by the issuers or guarantors, are held with a first lien/charge to mitigate credit risk exposures. These properties may be auctioned to recover the investment amount in case of default.
Investors’ funds are handled by a 3rd party escrow agency, Vistra. Funding Societies also has an inhouse Compliance team and internal and external legal counsel to support regulatory and legal matters.
What do you need to know as an Investor with Funding Societies?
- Funding Societies is the largest SME lending P2P investment platform in Southeast
Asia and licensed in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia - It’s shareholders include the likes of Sequoia, Softbank and SGInnovate amongst
many others - Funding Societies has won many awards including MAS FinTech Award in 2016, the
Global SME Excellence Award at the United Nations’ ITU Telecom World in 2017,
Brands for Good in 2019, recognised by IDC as amongst the 5 fastest growing
FinTechs in Singapore, and the Stevie® Award in 2020. - Funding Societies' minimum investment starts from just S$20
- Majority of the investments are short term with average tenor of 5-6 months and
maximum tenor of 12 months - Monthly repayment for most products provides liquidity and also allows investors to
re-invest quickly - Interest rates are typically between 4% - 8% per annum for the guaranteed and
property backed notes and goes up to 8% - 18% per annum for Invoice Financing,
Business Term Loans and other products. - Individuals who are Singapore residents can enjoy tax exemption for their interest
returns on investments from year 2020 onwards - ‘Skin in The Game’ philosophy - Funding Societies co-invests with the platform
investors in most notes - Engages an escrow agency to manage investors’ money to give investors peace of
mind. - Sign up through the web or download the Funding Societies mobile app to invest on
the go
Types of Investments with Funding Societies
Type of P2P Investment | Description | Interest Rate |
|---|---|---|
Guaranteed Property-backed Investment | Investment into a property-backed financing with repayments effectively guaranteed | 3% - 8% p.a. |
Guaranteed Returns Investment | Investment into a micro financing with repayments effectively guaranteed | 2% - 8% p.a. |
Property-backed Secured Investment | Investment into a property-backed financing | 4% - 8% p.a. |
Invoice Financing Investment | Investment into a invoice backed financing | 8% - 18% p.a |
Revolving Credit Investment | Investment into a revolving credit line granted to SMEs | 8% - 18% p.a |
Business Term Investment | Investment into a business term financing | 8% - 18% p.a |
Type of P2P Investments at FS and Interest rates
Fees for Funding Societies
- Service Fee: 18% on the interest earned. This fee is deducted only after the repayment has been received.
About Funding Societies
Funding Societies | Modalku is the largest debt crowdfunding platform in Southeast Asia. It is licensed in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and backed by Sequoia India and Softbank Ventures Asia Corp amongst many others.
It provides business financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is crowdfunded by individual and institutional investors.
In 5 years, it has helped finance over 3.2 million business loans with over S$1.8 billion in funding. It was given the MAS FinTech Award in 2016, the Global SME Excellence Award at the United Nations’ ITU Telecom World in 2017, Brands for Good in 2019, recognised by IDC as amongst the 5 fastest growing FinTechs in Singapore, and the Stevie® Award in 2020.
Contact Funding Societies
- Tel: 6221 0958
- Visit Funding Societies' official website for more information
Contact us at [email protected] should you require any assistance or spot any inaccuracies.