Welcome to my portfolio update #46, this time for the month of August 2022.
As always, we’ll have a look at how each of my investments performed. My stocks in the form of ETFs, P2P lending and my small percentage of crypto holdings.
We’ll also discuss any important events up to early September.
Please don’t forget that none of this is investment advice, just my personal opinion based on my own experience as an investor.
ETFs
Let’s begin with ETFs, making up 60% of my investments.
After an amazing month in July, our ETFs were slightly down in August:
Here’s how our main ETF, the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World (ISIN: IE00BK5BQT80) performed:
- -1,7% in August
- -6,6% since the start of 2022
And last month we received a total of 132,34€ in dividends from our distributing xTrackers MSCI World ETF shares, which we purchased from 2017-2018, before making the switch to the FTSE All-World.
If you're looking for the best, low-cost brokerage account in Europe, I recommend checking out Interactive Brokers. Meanwhile, if you're based in Austria or Germany, where taxes are more complicated, make sure you check out my favorite local brokers here. These take care of everything for you, making your life a lot easier.
P2P Lending
Alright, let’s have a look at my investments in P2P lending, starting with my largest platform.
Mintos Is Becoming Interesting Again
- Income (August 2022): 31,61€
- IRR: 10,76%
- Invested since: 27.09.2018
On Mintos, my funds in recovery dropped a bit, which I’m hoping will continue going forward.
For the first time in a while, I’m actually considering increasing my account size here, now that interest rates by the best lending companies on the platform increased quite substantially.
For example, right now you can invest into notes of car loans with a risk score rating of 9 paying 15,5% interest per year or short-term Columbian loans by Rapicredit paying a whopping 18,5% interest.
- Sign up to Mintos via this link and invest 1.000€ or more before 30.09.2022, to get a €50 instant bonus and a 1% bonus on your average investment in the first 90 days.
Lendermarket
- Income (August 2022): 36,06€
- IRR: 14,38%
- Invested since: 21.11.2019
Lendermarket is still my best performer after almost 3 years as an investor.
Even though the lending company Creditstar keeps posting strong financial numbers quarter after quarter, making me confident in my investments on Lendermarket, in my opinion they made the wrong business decision when it comes to how they handled their pending payments on Mintos.
I discussed this in more detail in my last monthly update in case you’re interested.
For that reason and because my account here has grown quite a bit over the years, I decided to withdraw 549,29€ in August. The money was back on my bank account within a few days.
- Get 1% cashback on your investments on Lendermarket after 60 days by signing up via my link.
Viainvest
- Income (August 2022): 33,96€
- IRR: 12,38%
- Invested since: 11.10.2019
Viainvest has also been running smoothly as far as my income was concerned, but the platform’s interface needs to be improved and simplified. Right now it’s a mess.
We should be seeing total interest earnings from both loans and securities right away, without the need to switch tabs like their current implementation (which is why I had to include two screenshots instead of one above).
There also needs to be way more communication regarding these changes, Mintos did a much better job when they transitioned to asset backed securities.
- Get a 10€ signup bonus on Viainvest via my link.
Robocash – New CEO & Interest Rate
- Income (August 2022): 32,68€
- IRR: 12,23%
- Invested since: 19.01.2021
The Robocash Group announced a new CEO, Natalya Ischenko in August, with the previous CEO remaining as chairman of the board. Robocash held a webcast to introduce her, talk about future developments and to answer some questions.
The only thing I wasn’t too happy about is that the platform decided to slightly lower its interest rates due to high investor demand for the platform’s loans:
That means that my new investments here, which typically have durations of 180-365 days, will now be earning 11,5%-12% interest per year. I’m still ok with that interest rate for one of my favorite platforms.
- Sign up using this link, to get 1% cashback on all of your Robocash investments after 30 days.
Iuvo Group
- Income (August 2022): 18,71€
- IRR: 11,21%
- Invested since: 05.10.2018
Crowdestor
- Income (August 2022): 8,90€
- IRR: 7,65%
- Invested since: 03.04.2019
Bondora Go & Grow
- Income (August 2022): 5,67€
- IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,68%
- Invested since: 01.09.2018
Bondora Go & Grow kept performing as expected, but the platform is now limiting Go & Grow’s 6,75% interest to existing investors only, while new investors can only get 4% via their unlimited tier.
In light of double digit inflation right now in Europe, 4% is just way too low in my opinion. I hope this will be revised soon.
- Get a 5€ bonus on Bondora when you sign up via my link and invest 10€ or more.
Bondster – Why I Might Remove Some Funds
- Income (August 2022): 26,89€
- IRR: 10,99%
- Invested since: 25.01.2022
Bondster had a strong month in August.
That being said, I have to be honest. While I really enjoyed all of my in person interactions with the team and the Bondster CEO Pavel in Vienna and at the Invest conference in Germany, I’m not too excited from an investor’s perspective right now.
Right now, the one thing keeping me on Bondster are ACEMA’s crypto collateralized loans paying 10% interest per year, which I can’t find anywhere else.
As for the other loans, many of the lending companies that were previously only available via Bondster like Rapicredit and Danarupiah, are available at a similar or in Rapicredit’s case, an even higher interest rate on Mintos. Plus, maybe there, there aren’t as many issues with properly buying back the loans if they’re 60 days overdue, which is something I’m noticing more and more often on Bondster:
Not only that, three major lending companies on Bondster are now also available on Income Marketplace at a similar interest rate, while offering more security features in addition to the buyback obligation, like the cashflow buffer and junior share.
So I’m strongly considering transferring some of the funds I have here over to Income Marketplace and Mintos. I’ll keep you updated on that.
Income Marketplace – Hello 15% Interest!
- Income (August 2022): 32,45€
- IRR: 11,01%
- Invested since: 17.03.2022
Speaking of Income Marketplace, after a weak month of July, August was my best month so far!
Several lending companies started paying 15% interest instead of the previous 12% per year, like the Bulgarian ITF Group, the Indonesian Danarupiah and Juancho Te Presta from Colombia.
All three of these loan originators are available on Bondster as well, but since they’re offered with additional security features on Income, I’d rather invest into their loans here.
Just make sure you change your auto invest settings to pick up some of the new 15% interest loans on the platform!
- Get a 1% bonus on all of your investments on Income after 30 days using this link. You can add the referral code: I4IEMZ during signup, but it’s not needed to qualify for the bonus, as long as you’re using one of my links.
My Income From P2P Lending in August
| Platform | Income | IRR | Invested | Value |
| Mintos | 31,61€ | 10,76% | 3.353€ | 6.162€ |
| Lendermarket | 36,06€ | 14,38% | 1.964€ | 3.110€ |
| Viainvest | 33,96€ | 12,38% | 2.737€ | 3.634€ |
| Robocash | 32,68€ | 12,23% | 3.250€ | 3.830€ |
| Iuvo Group | 18,71€ | 11,16% | 1.562€ | 2.855€ |
| Bondster | 26,89€ | 10,99% | 2.000€ | 2.129€ |
| Income | 32,45€ | 11,01% | 2.500€ | 2.608€ |
| Bondora Go&Grow | 5,67€ | 6,68% | 500€ | 1.024€ |
| EvoEstate | 0€ | 6,37% | 214€ | 300€ |
| Crowdestor | 8,90€ | 7,65% | 4.715€ | 6.059€ |
| Total | 226,93€ | 22.795€ | 31.711€ |
I earned a total of 226,93€ from P2P lending in August.
According to Portfolio Performance, the free tool I use to track my investments, that’s a return of 0,72% for the month and an internal rate of return of 8,54% p.a. from P2P lending in 2022.
Bitcoin & Ethereum
So, that’s it for my investments in P2P lending, let’s finish with a quick look at the most speculative 10% of my portfolio, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Sadly, after a great month of July, here’s what went down in August:
Bitcoin:
- -12% in August
- -52% so far in 2022
Ethereum:
- -4% in August
- -52% so far in 2022
At least I earned 106€ from crypto lending via FTX in August:
Alright, that’s it for my investments in August!
It’s crazy to think that I’ve now been publishing these updates for 46 months in a row! There’s no way I’d still be doing these if it weren’t for your feedback both here and on YouTube. So thank you for following me on my investment journey!
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Valuable Resources
- My Investment Tools
A list containing all my investments in P2P Lending, the brokerage accounts I use to buy ETFs, my speculative investments in Bitcoin and my free bank accounts. It even includes the tools I use for blogging and YouTube. - P2P Bonus Offers
A collection of all the best, currently available bonus and cashback offers in the P2P lending space. Regularly updated.
Disclaimer: Investing involves risks of losses. You should always do your own research before investing into anything. Also, some of the links are affiliate links, which help support me, the website & YouTube channel. I only link to services I use myself, none of them are sponsored.
Great update, thanks! Appreciate the update in text form besides the youtube video!
Thank you John, I really needed to hear that! Then I’ll keep it up and find some way to have the written form out a bit sooner in the future!
Hi Angelo!
I really appreciate you’re one of the very few P2P bloggers that still produces valuable content.
Thank you, and keep it up!
A question to you – imagine you have 5000Eur to invest.
How would you distribute it between P2P (which platforms?) and stock market?
Cheers,
Matt
Thank you Matt!
I can’t give you investment advice, so please do your own research to make your own informed decision 🙂
If it was my own money, I’d put 4.000€ in ETFs and 1.000€ in P2P Lending (my favorites are Robocash, Viainvest, Mintos, Income, Lendermarket – obviously with that amount one or two of these would be plenty).
That would also reflect how my own portfolio is split up – 60% in ETFs, 15% in P2P Lending.
Hi Angelo!
I have a lot of funds blocked in two platforms, of Russian originators.
What can be expected?
Hi Dimitar!
Me too, luckily not that much in absolute amounts (a few hundred €) – on Iuvo, Bondster and Mintos.
I think the Ukraine-Russia updates on Mintos give the best picture of the situation.
Russian lending companies are having no problems with repayments from their local loans, it’s only the money transfer to investors in Europe that’s still the issue. Mintos found a few ways to transfer funds back to investors, but sadly there’s a monthly maximum imposed by the Russian central bank that they’re able to transfer out of the country, slowing things down.
I expect a full recovery, but some platforms seem to be handling it better than others (eg. no communication from Bondster on the status).
INHO You have way too much money in Lendermarket…
Remember they are a single Lo in Mintos among many – Creditstar
I think you should allocate to Lendermarket the same amount you would allocate to a single big LO like delfingroup, Elvin group, Iute etc …
Well, that’s just my oppinion
Hi Nuno, I’m ok with the amount (3.110€) I have on Lendermarket. Creditstar is a large lending group and keeps posting strong financial results – if that changes, I’ll reconsider. I treat Viainvest (VIA SMS Group) and Robocash (Robocash Group) the same way.
Obviously everyone needs to decide for themselves how much to allocate to each platform, just like some people choose certain stocks over others. Thank you for sharing your opinion though!