Flender is an Ireland-based peer-to-peer (P2P) website that specializes in business loans. The platform facilitates loans of between €15,000 and €300,000, with terms of up to three years.

Much like any other P2P lending site active in the space, Flender is open to investors of all sizes. In return for backing its business loans, the platform claims to offer an average annual yield of 9.9%.

If you’re keen to find out more about Flender and its P2P investment model, be sure to read my in-depth review below. I cover all of the key points that I think you should know – such as how the platform works, where your money ends up, what risks you need to consider, and more.

What is Flender?

Launched in 2015 and based in Ireland, Flender is a P2P lending platform. The firm specializes exclusively in business loans, which range from €15,000 up to €300,000. All of the loans funded at Flender help fund small-to-medium businesses based in Ireland. In fact, the platform claims to have raised more than €22 million since its inception five years ago, subsequently resulting in the creation of 951 domestic jobs.

In terms of the loan specifications themselves, this can vary quite wildly at Flender. For example, there is currently a funding requirement for a €53,000 A+ graded loan with a 6.5% yield. At the other end of the spectrum, a €54,000 D graded loan – which met its funding target in full, is yielding 13.7%. With that said, Flender claims that on average, investors make 9.9% annually.

When it comes to getting your money back, the end borrower is expected to make monthly repayments until the loan is repaid in full. As and when they do, Flender will deposit the funds into your account. You will then have the option of withdrawing the money out, or reinvesting the cash into other business loans.

So now that you have a general overview of what Flender is, let’s look at who is eligible to invest.

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When you use a peer-to-peer loan investment platform such as Mintos, it is essential to set up auto-invest so that you avoid cash drag and lots of manual work.

Cash drag means having cash standing idle in your account. This is typically due to loan and interest being repaid back to you, which means that the cash will be in your account waiting for you to go back in and selecting what you want to invest in.

Obviously manually selecting thousands of loans to comprise your portfolio is a very inefficient way of doing things, although it might be a good way to test the waters if it’s the first time you are dealing with a peer to peer loan platform. It is perfectly OK to invest a set amount and then just wait a month or two to judge the results of your investment and learn how the platform works. Once you’re confident about the platform, you can then set up an auto-invest strategy and be well on your way to passive income.

You have to be careful when setting the auto-invest parameters on Mintos, because the biggest risk you face is that of a loan originator going bankrupt, and that has happened in the past. Check out the Mintos lender ratings post on Explorep2p as well as the Mintos loan scanner to see which are the most trustworthy lenders on the platform.

In 2018 Mintos also introduced risk ratings for loan originators offering their loans on the marketplace. The Mintos Ratings are on a scale from “A+” to “D”, representing the lowest and the highest counterparty risk respectively.

A German guy created this Google Sheet which is automatically updated with the latest interest rates from all Loan Originators on Mintos. It’s really nice to get an overview of the current and past interest rate levels.

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Mintos is my favorite P2P lending platform and I have invested a significant amount in this platform, so I am monitoring the situation carefully to see how they are handling the difficulties in the market.

With the COVID-19 situation taking its toll on the global economy, many investors may feel unsure about how to react to the current market downturn.

Let’s take a look at how the lending companies on Mintos are prepared for this possible recession

The prospect of recession is daunting for every investor, who will be wondering how their investments will fare in the long run. While no one can control the trajectory of the global markets, lending companies on the Mintos platform have considerable experience dealing with recessions. Some lending companies – like BB Finance– set up their business prior to the 2008 financial crash, and successfully leveraged the global reaction to the market change in a way that allowed them to grow their businesses even further.

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