In September, we gave you 5 reasons to invest in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. If you have not already opened your account on Funding Societies’ investor platform, it’s time to start now and earn up to 14% per annum returns on your investments along with 21,000 other investors who invest in crowdfunding with Funding Societies.
Here’s a recap of how P2P lending works
What are the products?
With Funding Societies, you can invest into the following 2 products:
Business Term Loans – Loan given to SMEs for working capital, fulfilment of contracts, acquiring new contracts etc. with tenors ranging from 1 month to 12 months. As an investor, you receive principal and interest on a monthly basis thus unlocking the cash and allowing you to reinvest the monies into new loans.
Invoice Financing (Accounts Receivables Purchase) – Funding provided to SMEs against the invoices issued to their buyers/debtors/clients with tenors ranging from 30 days to 90 days depending on the invoice credit period terms. Investors receive repayment at the end of 30/60/90 days along with interest.
Every deal could have a few hundred investors investing alongside you and thus you fund a small part of each loan/invoice and therefore also bear the same small part of the risk.
Okay, how do I start?
- Sign up as an investor on Funding Societies platform
- Receive your subscription agreement and e-sign it! (Fun fact: Funding Societies is the first P2P lending platform that has e-signing of contract so that their investors can do it on their computer or mobile anytime, anywhere)
- Make your first deposit of minimum $1,000
- Browse for opportunities on web or app platform
- Start investing from as little as $100
- Turn on Auto-Invest to let the system allocate investments based on your pre-set criteria
How do I choose which investments to go for?
Before every crowdfunding opportunity, you’ll receive an email alert for the deal. There is a detailed fact sheet that you can review hours before deciding to put your money in the loan.
Some of the investors on Funding Societies platform have placed their monies on every loan by either (i) manually investing when the crowdfunding period starts, or (ii) auto-investing (see point #6 above). For every auto-invested loan, you always have a choice to opt out from the investment before the crowdfunding starts.
However, different investors have different risk appetite, so it is common practice, and also a good one, to explore the platform and view the various opportunities before making your investment decision.
How do I track the repayments and performance of the investments?
When you invest on Funding Societies platform, the repayments are on a monthly basis.
Simply log on to the web portal and access the dashboard. Check out the screenshots here.
As an investor, you will also receive late repayment fees from SMEs who did not make the repayment on time – but hey, when you share the risk, it’s only fair that you share the returns right?
Common strategies to invest in P2P lending
While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for any type of investment, Funding Societies shares three ways you can explore for your investment portfolio with them:
- Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
As a matter of fact, investing in P2P lending is already one way to diversify your investment portfolio. However, within P2P lending, it makes sense to diversify your portfolio into different loans – by industries, amounts, tenure – to minimize the default risk.
- Create compounding effect by re-investing
Funding Societies’ repayment schedule is on a monthly basis, that means you get your original invested amount + pro-rated interests back every month based on the stated dates. While you can hold the money in the account, a smart thing to do is to use this for other investments on the platform to create a compounding effect.
- Free your time with Auto-Invest
As mentioned, Auto-Invest is a feature Funding Societies created to allow their investors to put in their money for loans based on their preferred criteria. Here, you can choose a range of interest rates, tenure, industries. Once it’s set up and switched on, the algorithm sets in to auto-allocate your preferred amount for the loans that fall within your criteria.
Start exploring P2P lending as an alternative investment now with Funding Societies. Sign up now by clicking here.
Disclaimers
This article is contributed by Funding Societies.
It should not be construed that Moneydigest is endorsing this article or any of the products and services provided by Funding Societies.
Nothing in this article should be construed as constitute or form a recommendation, financial advice, or an offer, invitation or solicitation from Funding Societies to buy or subscribe for any securities and/or investment products. The content and materials made available are for informational purposes only and should not be relied on without obtaining the necessary independent financial or other advice in connection therewith before making an investment or other decision as may be appropriate.