Review of Iuvo-Group P2P Platform
What is Iuvo-Group?
Iuvo-Group is a p2p-lending market platform founded in 2016. The company is based in Estonia.
That is basically all the information about the company that you’ll find on the website. If you don’t count the presentation of all staff members in the blog.
Lack of Transparency
For any P2P platform, we like to see financial data about loan originators and the company behind the platform. It is really discouraging that Iuvo-group doesn’t offer company data on the website and that information about the biggest loan originator, EasyCredit, isn’t up-to-date.
After starting the business in August 2016, the Iuvo-Group also made a huge loss in 2017, which raises a serious warning flag.
Who can Invest in Iuvo P2P platform?
The Iuvo-Group platform is open to most international investors. There are very few restrictions.
Individual investors must be at least 18 years old to open an account. They must also have a bank account in the EU or in a country that has an AML/CFT system equivalent to those in the EU.
Iuvo-group currently claims to have 8 600 investors from 118 countries
Iuvo-Group Focuses on Short-Term Personal Loans
With our first investments, we started with a small portfolio containing short-term personal loans with a buy-back guarantee of 30 days, which means that the loan originator promises to buy back loans that are delayed 30 days or more.
The score class, which tells you the loan’s estimated risk, is a helpful tool – at least in theory. We didn’t fully understand how it is used by the originators, since almost all our loans with score class A had a borrower who was retired, retired due to illness, and/or unemployed with low income.
This uncertainty grew when our delayed loans quickly rose to 30% after just two weeks. Because the buy-back guarantee doesn’t kick in until 30 days (or 60 days – depending on the loan originator), there are no returns on these investments for 1-2 months, unless the borrower pays.
You should note that the buy-back guarantee on this platform does not cover interest, only the principal.
What are the Returns?
To get a 6% return of an investment with 30% defaulted payments, the initial return must be at least 9%.
But rates are set depending on the risk. To find loans with a return rate of 9%, you expose yourself to higher risk. And, of course, with loans averaging a return of 9% you should expect even higher numbers of delayed/defaulted loans, since most of them are within the lowest score classes. [ Read More ]
It is, in other words, a delicate act to make the loans at this P2P platform work for you. Even if the default rate is low according to the score class, the actual delayed/default rate seems to be significantly higher.
Looking for loans backed with some sort of security doesn’t help much. We only found 4 such loans with interest rates between 9.03 and 9.05 percent.
In short, the platform is heavily oriented towards unsecured personal loans offered by Bulgarian EasyCredit. In December 2018, 79% of the loans offered on the primary market was listed by EasyCredit.
What is EasyCredit?
EasyCredit is a popular brand on the non-banking lending market in Bulgaria. It dominates leading within the market of small personal loans. So, if you want to invest in this lender’s typical loan stock, you’ve come to the right place. Otherwise not.
Referral Program
Iuvo-Group offers a referral program for investors who have invested 1 000 EUR or more. The program is based solely on e-mail invitations through Iuvo-Groups website.
While we appreciate the effort to reduce spam that can hurt the company’s credibility, we also find the strategy less appealing for website owners.
What Others Think
In January 2019, there are 130 reviews at TrustPilot. It is a lot of reviews for a platform with only 8 600 users.
This is one of the less positive reviews:
Works ok, but have misleading metrics, bad UI, lots of defaults
1. The UI is very very clunky and not comparable to similar platforms.
2. The returns displayed are not real because they are pre-calculated. The moment you invest something, your return skyrockets even though you still haven’t received anything. And you’ll never get the displayed return because when some credits default, you won’t get an interest for them (which is ok, but this screws the return metric).
3. A LOT of credits default.
4. You don’t have good historic metrics about returns per year, in-out/interest for each year, etc.
… And a very positive review
Good platform with nice return rates…
Good platform with nice return rates and loans availability.
What I like most:
1. Reliable and stable originators with good track records.
2. Very good return rates with buyback guarantee.
3. Steady flow of new loans. No cash drag.What can be better:
1. User experience needs improvement. Especially user interface as well as personal statistics. Reporting is very basic and inconvenient to use.
2. Platform development is slow. Adding new much needed functionality takes lot of time.Overall Iuvo is very good platform. I use it for more than 2 years and can honestly recommend it.
Pros – What We Like
- All originators have 30% skin in the game.
- Account Statement and its filtering options is the same as Mintos platform and the best on the market!
- Filtering of loans are also very smooth and useful (but result cannot be transferred to a portfolio).
- Loans on secondary market offered with no extra premium
Cons – What We Don’t Like
- Personal loans within the highest score classes are dominated by elderly with low income.
- Loan listings only available for registered users.
- High number of delayed/defaulted loans
- Low transparency
- Low diversity
- Poor referral program
