Is Envestio a scam?
High risk = High Revenue?
I am aware that my opinion on Envestio is extremely far from the many that can be found on financial forums
Envestio is (probably) not a scam, but I am not enthusiastic
I don’t invest with Envestio for now, at least, not yet
I am in love with Peer to Peer lending and I am constantly in search of better opportunities.
As soon as I spot something new I immediately start to analyze and dissect it “my way”. If I find something powerful I send out my newsletter to make people know what’s new.
I normally don’t mince words, but with Envestio it was different. It took me months to draw the first conclusions.
[bctt tweet=”The experienced P2P investor wants safety but also high revenue for his money.The newbie barely cares about the first aspect when investing in loans, since that’s harder to figure it out.” username=””]
Today I know it is possible to have a good balance between risk and profit with p2P and similar tools.
At I least I try hard to get it, but it costs some investigation work. It’s time to roll up my sleeves…
Highest P2P Lending returns
Envestio has some of the highest returns (with a sort of buyback) of the P2P market, so it deserves my full attention.
Envestio (and its good reviews) grabbed my attention, but didn’t convince me yet
Facts & background
Is Envestio reliable?
Envestio declares to be a former investment fund started in 2014, but no detailed data about what it exactly was is disclosed on the current website.
The official funding date is December 2017.
Compare p2p websites
Where is Envestio registered?
There are three companies registered by Envestio, each one with a share capital of €2500. (!)
This is a very new company for me to invest in. I like new opportunities but it’s just too early for my standards.
Statistically, something that existed for a long time has more chances to stay alive even more time. I wish very long life to Envestio because yields are just amazing, but I am not ready yet.
New doesn’t mean “Bad”, it means there is not much historical track record behind.
I remember when I spotted Mintos. At that time it was already rather big in numbers (they had founded above 60M already) but when I found out Mintos was newly born my enthusiasm cooled down for a while.
Address is in Estonia
Where is Envestio based?
This country is one of the leading places in the world for financial technologies and I have reasons to believe that they care about transparency. Estonian economy has been doing very well lately. Most Baltic countries are doing well.
This is a good point in favour of Envestio to be registered in Estonia, since some other countries are known for “medium” levels of compliance with international regulations.
It happens to me to realize that the first contact I had from Envestio was from Riga in Latvia, and their office may be also (or not only) in Estonia.
Only the CEO has clear links to Estonia (from his LinkedIn profile). I appreciated they linked to their real work profile. It tells much more then a simple email address. The rest of the staff seems to have bonds with Latvia more than with Estonia.
The feeling I get is that this is still a growing business, but what “I feel” is worth nothing in this analysis, so let’s head to the numbers.
Size matters
Envestio has less than 7000 investors (2019)
It is not a huge number compared to 79.000 of Funding Circle, or the
124.000 on Mintos, or the 60.000 on Bondora.
The number of investors on Envestio is growing, also because, as I already said, it is probably the P2P lending paying the highest interests with buyback ever.
I don’t think “Envestio is too good to be true”, my humble approach is “let’s find out if it fits my risk/balance or not”.
Envestio offers business loans
€ 12 Millions offered so far. This number is smaller than most of the debt crowdfunding platforms in Europe.
Even if growing at a fast pace, Envestio is not big yet.
To make a comparison, October (ex Lendix) had funded >200M € business loans so far.
Now I wish to digress slightly:
[bctt tweet=”Can you believe that Lendix, with such a great business name, switched to the name “October” that means nothing? I am still shocked. End.” via=”no”]
The size is one of the reasons that prevents me to invest in their projects.
Critical mass is crucial in this world.
(even if it is not perfect)
Estonian language is missing
The website is only in English and German, no Estonian.
I don’t understand why. Most Baltic P2P tools have their language first plus English and others.
Envestio cash drag
Envestio has few loans available.
Sometimes no new projects are published for weeks.
P2P lending cash drag is a rather ordinary issue on the least liquid platforms. It is also normal that business loans P2P tools are less liquid.
I follow Envestio from March 2018 and it has always been like this.
As an investor I think it may be difficult to obtain diversification on a consistent amount of money if there are only few projects to chose from.
I can imagine it is more difficult to assess a business that asks for credit compared to an ordinary personal loan. The size of the loans is also different. I believe that many borrowers are rejected on business loans platforms like Envestio because they don’t always have minimum requirements.
Envestio loans risk rating
On Envestio blog I found this line: “Envestio would characterise these borrowers having a rating somewhere between BB and BBB” (https://blog.envestio.com/how-safe-investments-in-envestio-are/)
What is the default rate of a BB business loan in Eastern Europe?
I wonder if the yield they offer to investors is reasonable for similar ratings and for the average business loan in Europe.
I don’t have an proper answer, it depends from too many factors. Experts please help to make it clear in the comments! ⬇️
Envestio BuyBack (how it works)
The buyback is a promise of an immediate repurchase of the loan from Envestio itself.
This is good, but hold on!
This is different from the buyback I find on other P2P websites.
Investors have to ask for buyback. Buyback is not automatic in case of late payments (if applicable).
Buyback on Envestio has nothing to do with the one I find on Mintos. On Mintos my loan is bought back in case of late payments, on Envestio the lender has to right to ask for rebuy when the loan is still active.
Was it tested by anyone yet it this 16 months of Envestio’s existence?
Envestio states that it has enough liquidity to perform the buyback.
5% is the price to pay for buyback (plus special conditions, if any).
Envestio says it is sufficiently capitalized to execute any buyback immediately.
Virtually it may be asked to buyback all the active loans.
To do so it must have good liquidity or only a limited number of active loans.
Investors can get two types of loans:
secured debt project
subordinated debt project
For the “secured” ones, in case of “standard default” of a loan, 80% of it is repaid immediately to investors. The guarantee can be extended up to 90%.
For Subordinated debt project there is nothing to do but wait for a legal action to solve the problem and eventually recover some principal.
I don’t know if ordinary investors can find out what kind of loan they are financing. I don’t know what a “standard default” is for Envestio.
It is not mentioned if I am entitled to ask for an Envestio buyback even after I see signs of default or late payments.
No secondary market
There is no secondary market but it is stated that it will be implemented.
Good.
The thing that Envestio would buyback the loans from me upon request doesn’t mean it has a secondary market.
Will Envestio have enough resources to buy the loans if all investors would try to sell their loans at the same time?
(‼️Are you investing on Envestio? Write your thoughts in the comments below please!)
Borrowers pay between 2% and 3% for study and due diligence to apply to Envestio.
This seems reasonable to me. Even too generous for the borrowers..
Fees and rules
Investors pay almost zero fees.
The minimum investment is 1€ and the minimum deposit is 100€.
Most of the projects are in Latvia.
Some projects are split in more projects but it is the same borrower for the same project and almost the same numbers.
Some projects are about crypto mining.
I don’t like cryptos for the hype they have got lately and for many other reasons.
I may like blockchain technology as a mean of exchanging money and contracts.
I believe crypto mining is still a risky business and personally, I would not support a farm (for such a relatively limited yield).
Moreover farms’ efficiency is based on electricity price and Europe is not famous for having cheap energy.
Furthermore, I see there are “traditional” projects that pay higher interests compared to crypto mining.
How can it be?
In the list of the completed projects, I see many of the borrowers of the active projects that are borrowing again.
Envestio FAQ
How safe is Envestio?
I can’t say if Envestio is safe or risky.
I don’t like it.
I think safety also depends on the use of an investor does, but with so little projects available it gets complicated to be picky. What I see from the discussions on investing forums is that, as soon as Envestio publishes a new high yield project, just everybody rushes to get it.
Projects are founded in very short time.
What one becomes an Envestio investor is entitled to refer it to his friends.
The incentives to refer Envestio after becoming an investor are tempting, but I don’t think it can be the only reason behind the wave of good Envestio reviews I read around.
I personally don’t know anyone of the 6000 Envestio investors. I wish to meet someone heavily invested and with a deep knowledge of the platform someday. If someone has €500 in a couple of business project there I would not say he can be a knowledgeable investor yet.
I am not invested, so my opinion is just one more in the crowd.
What is the ECN network
It is a “supporting member” of
ECN.ECN is the European Crowdfunding Network and lots of P2P are there.
To be a “supporting member” a P2P has to pay €450 yearly.
October/Lendix is a “strategic member” and pays €1000 yearly.
All this data is freely available on the ECN website.
The ECN says it sets out “best practice principles” and they expect every platform to respect the code ECN of conduct, but nothing seems to be mandatory.
From the names I see there I believe that if Envestio was a big scam it wouldn’t have been accepted on the ECN. I will investigate on the ECN terms in the next weeks.
Money injections
It is fantastic to inject money in a real project of the real economy, this empowers our money.
To do so, there are two ways within the crowdfunding tools available.
One is lending crowdfunding and one is equity crowdfunding.
Equity is normally more complex than Lending, and Envestio is a lending based crowdfunding.
If one investor is interested in taking huge risks and get potentially huge returns or total loss, equity is the tool.
The names are not secret. I mention Seedrs, WeFunder, OurCrowd and many more.
Some of these are startup investing project, the most dangerous ever.
Envestio opinion & conclusions
At present, should I invest in business loans, I would prefer to do it through older platforms where I can get a buyback, a decent return and some more volume. Not Envestio
In truth most platforms are not generous with investors or suffer some scarcity of loans on offer, unfortunately.
When I buy loans, I like diversification, to spread the risk and mitigate the impact of one or more late payers.
Diversification can be difficult to achieve with business loans and properties. It is normally easies with ordinary loans due to high offer.
Well, just off the top of my head…
I wonder if it is safer for me to split €10k in:
1000 “C” rated Bondora loans (or whatever p2p loan is just the same) with 22% interest yearly of €10 each
OR (for the same amount)
10 projects on any Business loans platform for €1000 each.
Food for thoughts… and comments.
I decided for myself, also because I am quite experienced now to find good P2P loans.
As an ordinary
DiY investor, I believe it can be demanding to have the knowledge (and the time) to study the papers of a business project and decide if it is worth any attention.
The alternative is to rely 100% on the assessment work made by the loans platforms and I don’t want to.
It’s rumored that some Real Estate Crowdfunding platforms publish overvalued properties. I don’t know if this is true, but It makes me think.
Envestio, like all the other P2P websites, states that the risk of losing invested money is real, and it has a clear and accessible “investment-risk” page on the website.
Update 2019:
Envestio announced his auto invest tool.
This may help reducing cash drag, but if there are very few new projects it won’t solve the problem. On the other hand, investors that are not using auto invest will hardly be on time to get a share of new loans (auto invest is normally faster).
🔴 Envestio News
Emergency update January 2020
It is reported that the Envestio website is currently down.
Forget about me for now,
make up you own mind and visit Envestio website on your terms.
P.S.
I have made a list of
my ratings of P2P tools. This ⭐️ star ratings are based on a series of parameters I value, from size, to advanced features, to “easiness of exit”, and relative safety.
This list is getting longer and it continues to evolve while I test and study the platforms for my use.
Envestio is still under examination.
Are you using Envestio?
Did I miss anything?
Is everything good so far?
Let me know in the comments!
Share your knowledge here and help others!
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Nice review one thing though, Envestio will not be publishing any loans with the “subordinated debt” status. All loans will be “secured debt” hence covered by their Buyback Guarantee scheme.
Thank you for your contribution, Peter.
I have not yet been able to ascertain that what you report about the conversion of the loans from unsecured to secured type will cover 100% of future loans (if it is in progress). If this is a promise that is not yet supported by numbers, I wont’t change my POV. I am very careful when investing, so, without fresh and reliable data, I’d rather wait next year to make a new assessment on Envestio.
I also take into account that the buyback scheme they offer has nothing to do with the type of loan (secured or subordinated).
You are the only one who made a deep, fair analysis on Envestio so far. Maybe “all that glitters is not gold”. The thing is: high yields like this are tempting. I’ll take some more time to decide for myself. Thanks for writing it, keep going
Hi,
You wanted to meet some deeply invested investors. You can try to contact this one:
https://financiallyfree.eu/
Hi Rimvydas,
Thanks for writing. From time to time I read other bloggers reviews because some of them perform an excellent investigation job.
I know my opinion about Envestio can be interpreted as daunting. From time to time I also mention tools I don’t like (yet).
In truth, what I’ve done here is purely focus on numbers, data and facts anyone should absolutely collect before investing.
I always do that preliminary study for myself, then I share my thoughts on RevenueLand.
I receive very good feedbacks about my (few) reviews and I’m proud of my independence.
I haven’t found sufficient reasons to join Envestio because my risk profile doesn’t fit with such tool for now.
You listen to more opinions and then make your own. That’s the safest strategy ever, keep it up.
I hope you’ve found my content helpful.
Finally I found someone not too enthusiastic about Envestio.
Envestio hasn’t published new projects in months and my money is waiting to be invested.
You are the only p2p blogger🥇 who also writes awkward reviews
Keep it up.
Unusual Envestio review. Good to read
You should be on envestio if you want to write a proper envestio review
I have 130k on Mintos. Why should I invest in something different from Mintos?
I am not that negative about Envestio. I like the comparison table on your website I added Flender to my P2P list right away. Now I am going to try optimizing my overall p2p portfolio. Thanks for sharing
Do NOT go for Investio! I have had (still having) a very bad experience with adding funds. Recently they have updated their user check policy by requesting proof of residency. After uploading the documents, I’ve transferred money to to my account. According to the website it takes 2 business days. After that I have decided to call them and here’s what happened:
– Tried to call the number on the website 9 times, all of them got rejected
– Tried to talk to live agents 5 times, the website would state none of them were available
– In those 5 times, I have opened tickets, got noticed that they needed further checks, which I replied that even though I understand, it is no reason to hold my money, so I asked to either add it to my funds or send the money back
– EVERYTIME I would suggest one of the 2 options (worth to mention I also sent proof of transfer and all the details were correct), they would close the ticket, marking it as solved.
It has been 4 days since I have transferred the money, I am still trying to contact them but so far I haven’t got any answers…if someone had a similar experience, please share so I know what next steps I can take.
I would not worry too much after only 4 days. Let us know when you’ve solved.
I would not worry too much if at least they would be able to pick up my calls or not close tickets when the issue is not in fact solved. Because my main problem is the fact that I haven’t got one single answer as to where my money is. I do not know if it is on hold, about be added to my account, already sent back but my bank is taking long to give it back….
I transfer funds to envestio on 25th October, it’s 30th October and the money is not in the Account, they asked proofs where the money comes from, but no answer yet. I’ve tried to call, but no answer. If I knew It was so difficult I wouldn’t enrol to envestio.
After 1 week, the problem with funds was solved. So by now, no complaint
I will not add more funds to ENvestio but it is working properly so far. I think you are too negative. Why don’t you write about Mintos and German P2P Lending
Thank you for your feedback, Ernst. This is my famous mintos review updated.
I’m invested at Envestio with a substantial amount and have a return on investment of around 17%. Things are running very smoothly, particularly since the introduction of the Auto Invest my effort to manage my investments has decreased to basically zero.
Nonetheless, I do celebrate critical reviews and yours is greta work and very extensive.
What do you think about Crowdestor? This platform is going through teh roof right now with many projects available every week. My return on investment on Crowdestor is similar to Envestio so it might a an alternative who everyone who finds Envestio doubtful.
Keep up the good work,
Marian from financiallyindependent.eu
Good Day Everyone, I am Mr. Jensen Ledger
Obrigado pelo seu post. Vejo que é de 26.03.2019. Hoje, 12.11.2019, actualizaria a sua opinião?
In truth I have made some updates lately on this but I haven’t changed the date.
No news BTW. It still is a small, aggressively growing platform with high interest rates.
I confirm everything, included what I think about their buyback formula.
Should I want (real estate) business loans I’d look at Crowdestate.com and EstateGuru.co ( 2 much bigger and older tools), but it’s just my boring opinion. Even Flender.ie has some appeal to me for business loans.
I think Envestio is a scam. Check the companies behind the project, all barely functioning with low tax payments or tax debts – who would fund them? Their turnover does not match the loan value… Also Linkedin employees does not look too trustworthy. Do people even spend any time checking where they invest their money?
Just remember that the money “growing” in Envestio account is just a number set by a script… real money is probably already somewhere else
At the moment I find it unfair to define Envestio as a scam.
Personally, I have not yet found sufficient guarantees to invest. I imagine that those who have invested so far have no reason to complain. I remain vigilant and ready to change my mind.
lursoft.lv
There are worrying rumors about Envestio
https://www.p2p-kredite.com/diskussion/
The owner of p2p kredite is a reliable source. I don’t know about the forum since it is in German.
The Envestio website is gone!!!
I hope it is just a temporary issue.
Follow the updates on the P2P lending secrets group
You saved my life. I’ve read this article last year after investing 10k with envestio. This bad opinion made me cash out everything instantly and it was the right choice. I trust you.
Wһen someone writes an paragraph he/she retains the plan of a user іn his/heг
mind that hoѡ a user can understand it. Thus that’s wһy this
piece of writing is outѕtԀandіng. Thanks!
The only blogger to write against a platform before it collapse is you. Chapeau Revenueland