Here it is! The recent Lendermarket stars article. In this blog series, we highlight the investment journeys of our investors, as well as financial bloggers and influencers.
This time we talked with Silvere, a successful investor from France, and Investisseur Nomade blog owner. Silvere shares his knowledge with French investors mostly about P2P lending, platforms, diversifications, and other relevant topics to retail investors.
Hi Silvère, it’s a pleasure having you participate in the Lendermarket Stars series, tell us a bit about yourself and how you built Investisseur Nomade
I am a digital entrepreneur and investor, but before that, I went through classic studies in economics and a few years later in computer science. When I built it, my blog investisseur-nomade.fr was supposed to cover a wide range of investment sectors. But I quickly specialized in P2P lending given its richness at the time and the fact that most French people know very little about this FinTech investment sector.
For how long have you been investing in P2P loans?
I started P2P lending very timidly at the end of 2018 and took the time to fully understand this new FinTech sector that wasn’t well known yet, even at the European level.
Since then I have increased the capital invested and diversified the platforms while avoiding the trap of multiplying them too much their number without a reason justifying it.
How has your investing experience been with Lendermarket so far?
I started with Lendermarket because I knew the professionalism of Creditstar, which supported the development of the platform.
I stayed because Lendermarket showed many strengths that made me decide to give it a strategic place in my portfolio: geographical diversity, no cash drag, above-average returns and a simple but effective interface.
Would you suggest your community try out Lendermarket?
I have spoken about my investments on Lendermarket several times, both to my newsletter subscribers and to my twitter community. Their feedback has been very positive and many have signed up as a result, including a number of first-time investors.
For any investor, diversification is key, what’s your allocation in P2P, and what other investment classes does your portfolio include?
Diversification is indeed the key both between different asset classes and within the same asset class.
I invest in both traditional and FinTech assets. But for the moment, I only communicate on my P2P lending investments. However, I am thinking of communicating more openly about the diversity of my assets next year, once I have said everything about P2P lending!
Do you think people invest differently in France compared to the rest of Europe? If so, how and why?
In France, the vast majority of investors remain very attached to traditional assets such as stock market shares, life insurance and gold. Furthermore, the French believe that it is imperative to use banking intermediation despite extremely low returns and high transaction costs. We have not yet taken the measure of the FinTech revolution ongoing in Europe, unlike Germany, Spain, Portugal and Italy, which seem much more open to new forms of investment.
If you could give yourself advice back at the beginning of your investment journey, what would it be?
Take it easy, no rush. Train yourself. Do Your Own Research. Get involved in an investment community. Look for the right people to follow on social media. All basic but important advice!
What do you think are the steps investors should follow when choosing a trustful P2P platform?
In my blog, I provide an in-depth analysis of all the P2P platforms in which I invest. In parallel, I have established a ranking of the main P2P platforms in Europe. This ranking is based on 50 factual criteria with the objective of identifying the main characteristics of the platforms in terms of return, security of loan originators, solidity, liquidity and diversification.
Our last guest in this interview series left a question for you: Will rising central bank rates mean higher interest being paid to P2P investors?
It is impossible to answer this question with a yes or no, even for an economist like me. There is too much macroeconomic data involved. Moreover, platforms have different policies on this subject. Some pay attention to these interest rates to adjust their own. Others set their rates according to the supply of loan originators and the demand of investors.
On the one hand, the cost of bank credit will rise, which will redirect some borrowers towards loan originators, which should mechanically increase rates. But on the other hand, as crowdlending is rapidly expanding, it will bring a continuous flow of new investors. This will allow the platforms to stabilise or even reduce their rates. In conclusion, I would therefore lean towards certain stability in the short and medium term.
Last but not least, in order to continue with this chain, leave a question for our next interviewee to answer!
What kind of investor are you: the one who controls all his P2P investments through all sorts of calculation tables and spends time checking his XIRR every month or the one who trusts the platforms’ dashboards and want his investments to be as passive as possible?
Hope you enjoyed reading Lendermarket Stars series with Silvere.
By the way, feel free to leave a question for our next interviewee in the comments.
Do you want to start investing in P2P loans by yourself?