P2P & Dividend Income May 2020 (My Best Month Yet!)

It’s about time for my latest monthly income update, this time for the month of May 2020!

We’ll talk about how each of my P2P lending platforms performed, why this has been the highest earning month for me so far and we’ll take a look at recent updates in the P2P lending space.

Last but not least, there’s also a noteworthy update on the Grupeer front you might be interested in.

P2P Lending Income – May 2020 Overview

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Iuvo Group	32,42€	13,82%	1.857€	2.594€
Mintos	101,35€	13,11%	9.005€	10.228€
Mintos I&A	3,73€	10,96%	340€	438€
Bondora G&G	13,03€	6,66%	1.981€	2.192€
Crowdestor	9,34€	8,82%	6.200€	6.565€
Swaper	5,58€	12,07%	3€	100€
Viainvest	17,42€	10,88%	1.500€	1.603€
Lendermarket	58,95€	12,00%	3.000€	3.165€
EvoEstate	0€	1,73%	630€	633€
Wisefund	0	-11,41%	60€	0 (Exit fee)
Grupeer*	0*	-….%*	2.825€*	0*
Monethera*	0*	-….%**	1.028€*	0*
Envestio*	0*	-….%*	2.807€*	0*
Total	241,82€	-10,57%	31.236€	27.519€

In total, I earned 241,82€ (+42,33€) from P2P lending last month.

That’s a substantial increase compared to one month ago, as the situation seems to slowly be improving in the crowdlending space.

More Dividends!

That’s not all, my wife and I also received 345,13€ in dividends from our xtrackers MSCI World ETF (ISIN: IE00BK1PV551).

This ETF pays out dividends once per year, while our other ETF, the Vanguard FTSE All-World distributes dividends on a quarterly basis. If you’re interested in my simple ETF investment strategy, make sure you check out my ETF strategy.

Why I’m counting these dividends as income

I should clarify, dividends are not “free bonus money” as the market value of ETFs is volatile and can go up or down.

Also, for some countries, it can be more tax-efficient to buy an accumulating ETF, meaning an ETF that reinvests dividends into the fund right away instead of distributing them.

Nonetheless, I’m confident that our globally diversified ETFs average dividend yield of 2-2,3% per year is a safe amount I could spend and not reinvest if needed, without worrying that I’m reducing the value of my ETFs over the long run.

It’s far below the 4% “safe withdrawal rate” that you probably heard many people in the financial independence community talk about.

Now you know why I’m including these dividends in my monthly income updates, I hope you don’t mind. Another thing that certainly doesn’t hurt is that seeing this number grow over time motivates me to keep investing!

My Monthly Income (Total)

As I mentioned in the beginning, this was my best month so far, at least as far as “passive” income from investments is concerned. In total, my income from investments amounted to 612,33€ (+267,2€) in May.

This would be 40,82% of my goal, which is 1.500€ monthly income from investments.

Of course I know not every month is going to look like this, so I’m thinking of introducing a monthly average starting next month.

Alright, let’s take a look at how each of my P2P platforms did last month!

Iuvo Group

• Income (May 2020): 32,42€ (+7,72€)
• IRR: 13,82%
• Invested since: 05.10.2018

All in all, my returns on Iuvo Group have been very stable throughout the past few months and I think they’re doing a solid job as far as communication with investors is concerned.

• Read all updates on their blog

In my previous update, I told you that I was planning to reduce my account balance to 2.500€, to further diversify my portfolio over more countries and loan originators. That’s why I withdrew 402,87€ over the course of May. With that, I’m now pretty close to my target allocation.

Apart from that, Iuvo Group changed its refer-a-friend program on May 7th. While the new conditions aren’t quite as good as the previous ones, I still thought the change was worth mentioning:

• After receiving a referral to Iuvo Group (you can request one here), you get a 1% bonus on an investment of 2.000€-3.500€ or a 1,5% bonus when investing 3.501€ or more. The bonus is capped at a maximum of 150€.

Mintos

• Income (May 2020): 101,35€ (-10,59€)
• IRR: 13,11%
• Invested since: 27.09.2018

While I received a good amount in interest payments on Mintos, my pending payments increased further compared to April and currently make up about 10% of my account balance.

It’s clear that many loan originators on the platform are affected by the global crisis. Personally, I’m staying positive and hope that the situation is going to improve over the coming months.

Mintos Invest & Access – Withdrawing

• Income (May 2020): 3,73€ (-13,19€)
• IRR: 10,96%
• Invested since: 12.06.2019

Not much has changed here. I’m still in the process of withdrawing from my Mintos Invest & Access account after my experiment. I prefer using the Auto Invest on my main Mintos account.

Most of the money is still “stuck” in the Invest & Access portfolio and in pending payments, while around 140€ are in loans I invested in manually with some of the money I was able to cash out from Invest & Access in March.

I will probably try to sell the latter on the secondary market, to simplify my portfolio and focus on my main Mintos account.

Bondora Go & Grow

• Income (May 2020): 13,03€ (-1,70€)
• IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,66%
• Invested since: 01.09.2018

As you probably know by now, due to a substantial increase in Go & Grow withdrawals due to the pandemic, Bondora implemented partial withdrawals.

I’m curious to see when they’ll be able to return to quick, full withdrawals straight from Go & Grow, as was the case before.

Bondora also recently published more details of what the Go & Grow portfolio, which is made up of over 109.000 single loans, currently consists of:

• A deep dive into the Go & Grow portfolio

• You can get a 5€ Bonus on Bondora when you sign up via my link.

Crowdestor

• Income (May 2020): 9,34€ (+9,34€)
• IRR: 8,82%
• Invested since: 03.04.2019

Things are starting to look better at Crowdestor, as I received some interest payments again in May.

One planned loan repayment for Fertilizer Export Financing was pushed 1-2 weeks back, so that should be part of next months update.

A lot of other interest payments are now scheduled under “upcoming payments” in my account, so it looks as if the situation is slowly going back to normal on the platform. I’ll keep you posted.

On a side note, I changed all of my links to the platform, so that you can now get 1% cashback for 180 days when signing up to Crowdestor via my link.

Swaper – Withdrawing

• Income (May 2020): 5,58€ (-3,56€)
• IRR: 12,07%
• Invested since: 02.10.2019

I’m almost done withdrawing my funds from Swaper, as I wanted to remove what I perceived to be riskier platforms after the Grupeer shock. To Swaper’s credit, it only took about two months to withdraw almost my entire investment.

The P2P platform has also been trying to show more transparency as of late, by (finally) adding its team members to the About section of its website and by sending out several updates via e-mail throughout the pandemic.

I might reconsider Swaper in a couple of months if they manage to publish an audited financial statement by then.

• If you’re personally interested in Swaper, check out my updated P2P bonus page to see their new cashback offer.

Viainvest

• Income (May 2020): 17,42€ (+1,48€)
• IRR: 10,88%
• Invested since: 11.10.2019

I’m happy to share that May was my best earning month so far on Viainvest. The recently increased interest rate (12%) was probably part of the reason why.

Viainvest also launched a 1% auto invest cashback campaign, valid until June 10th:

Since I was planning to add more to the platform anyway, I wired an extra 1.000€ to my account a few days ago, but that will be part of my June update.

My Viainvest Auto Invest Settings

To keep it as simple as possible, I only invest into loans from countries without a withholding tax on the platform (Sweden, Romania, Latvia, Poland). Here are my Auto Invest settings for Viainvest:

Lendermarket

• Income (May 2020): 58,95€ (+52,83€)
• IRR: 12,00%
• Invested since: 21.11.2019

After my income took a considerable hit throughout March and April because of the large number of late loans, Lendermarket made up for it in May and broke my previous monthly income record.

My Auto Invest Changes – The Results!

Last month I told you that I was testing a change in my Auto Invest settings, by explicitly excluding loans from Poland and Spain, seeing as all loans from the two countries were delayed during the pandemic.

I’m happy to say that the vast majority of my loans from Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Estonia are current and seem to be paying according to schedule so far. Hopefully it stays that way!

Even though there have been no issues with the buyback after 60 days on Lendermarket, I still prefer seeing regular interest and principal payments.

• You can get 1% Cashback on all your investments on Lendermarket after 60 days when signing up via this link
• Lendermarket Review

EvoEstate

• Invested since: 03.02.2020

I don’t have anything new to report as an investor on EvoEstate, as the two projects I’m invested in have a loan duration of 12 months and I won’t receive interest payments before the end of the loan term.

EvoEstate hasn’t published any new skin in the game projects since the pandemic started. Here is why:

• Why there are no new Skin in the game projects?
• You can get 0,5% Cashback for 6 months on EvoEstate by using this link

Updates on the Grupeer front

Last but not least, things are moving forward regarding the legal case against Grupeer. Until June 8th, 2020 it’s now possible to officially join the case against the platform and to be represented by the law firm Ellex. You can find more details here:

• Grupeer Armada – Updates
• Announcements (Telegram)
• My April update regarding the case

Once again, I want to clarify that I can’t give you legal advice or any recommendations, this is not my area of expertise. So it’s 100% up to you to decide if it makes sense to join or not.

Personally, I submitted all necessary files a couple of days ago and wired my contribution, which was 1,8% of my claim against Grupeer. I also signed up for 5 free qualified, electronic signatures on Evrotrust, as those will be needed later on.

What about Grupeer’s recent communication?

Alla Kisika, the Grupeer CEO/COO (the only one left?) sent out some e-mails and blog updates in May. To me, they’re meaningless without actions (eg. processing withdrawals).

Of course, I’d be ecstatic if the situation were to somehow turn around and take a different ending, but I currently find that unlikely. Until then, I’m joining the legal action.

That’s all for now!

Thank you for stopping by and for taking the time to read my latest monthly update. I’m very grateful to each and everyone of you for all of your support. I will try my best to repay you by producing more (hopefully useful) content over the coming weeks!

You might find this useful:

• Current P2P Lending Bonus and Cashback Offers (June 2020)
• P2P Lending During Coronavirus
• How To Buy ETFs – My Investment Strategy
• My Entire Investment Portfolio
• How To Track Your Investments In P2P Lending

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