Disclaimer: This text was originally written in Italian and translated to English. All translations were done based on the translated English document. Even though we try our best to provide accurate translations, there might be slight differences due to the different languages and cultural nuances.
As a personal finance content creator, Leonardo Pinna knows that his videos help to equip people with the knowledge to make their own financial choices and investment decisions. But during times of crisis, he realized that content creators’ roles become even more important, especially if their focus is personal finance.
That’s why Leonardo decided to embrace the responsibility. He shared his personal investment experiences—good and bad—so his subscribers can gain more knowledge on how to best navigate the current financial storm. This is his story of how the 2020 financial crisis affected his portfolio and how he creates content.
Hello, let me introduce myself
My name is Leonardo Pinna, I’m 26 years old, I’m Italian and I opened my YouTube channel at the beginning of 2019, which recently exceeded 20,000 subscribers! On my channel I handle everything related to personal finance; from savings, to investments in the stock market and the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market.
I invest in the stock market and P2P lending, and I also went through the difficulties brought about by the pandemic in March 2020. But as a content creator, I’m well aware that my position involves responsibilities to investors who follow me and who are interested in what I’m talking about, and that what I say often influences people’s investment decisions.
But before we go further, I would like to point out that I am not a financial advisor and I cannot provide investment advice. I simply describe my experiences with the investments I undertake.
And so, the idea for this Bondora article was born, because I knew everyone was affected by the events of 2020. In this article, I’ll report on my experience, and how my investment strategy was influenced by the effects of the pandemic, both as an investor and as a content creator.
The losses investors endured in 2020
First of all, as an investor in P2P lending, I suffered significant losses due to some unregulated platforms that turned out to be unreliable during the coronavirus crisis. This made me understand, as an investor, that it is essential to know the business model behind a P2P lending platform and to assess its economic sustainability. From this point of view, I was pleasantly surprised by Bondora’s readiness to respond to the pandemic. In fact, Bondora had already established a plan for dealing with an emergency situation, and for me who had invested through Bondora for a few years, this was a sign of reliability—something you want to see in the platforms that you choose to invest with.
Similarly, as a content creator, this pandemic led me to think about what I would say to my subscribers, and from that moment I have tried to highlight the difficulty in finding serious and competent P2P lending platforms that can offer compelling returns. In the end, I decided to bring in more analytical content. Through analyses of expected returns and documents available to investorsI made the most objective evaluations possible and compared investment platforms.
Bondora maintained the best net return
Once again, in the European P2P lending landscape, the analyses (which you can find in my videos) clearly show that during these dark months, Bondora was the platform that allowed me to maintain the best risk-return ratio. This was especially remarkable, since, in some cases, platforms negotiated loan deferrals, then reduced the return on my investment, whilst Bondora maintained the full functionality of Go & Grow, and I continued to earn up to 6.75%* interest even during the worst months.
The responsibilities of content creators
Speaking instead on my role as a content creator, this situation has made it clear that I cannot afford to overlook the importance of sharing and talking about significant aspects of the investment world, such as risk management, the investment time horizon and the risk-to-return ratio. The main reason being that the people who follow me, in addition to supporting my project, listen and take their cue from what I bring to the channel. Thus, I have a huge responsibility towards these investors.
In addition, many investors have contacted me and asked for my opinion on what might be the best investment, what features of an investment should be considered more important, what procedures should be activated for the recovery of money, etc. These are some of the fears that have spread most among investors during the pandemic and people wanted answers.
For this reason, during the crisis period, I focused on communicating the importance of making informed decisions. In other words; knowing the investment tool, not underestimating the risks related to investments that offer double-digit returns, managing the risk to the portfolio by diversifying through various categories of assets.
Common sense will always be important
I have tried to emphasize that an investor should always use common sense and judgment when he or she wants to invest his or her own money, which, as we know, takes time and effort to be earned. I did this with as much transparency as possible on my experience and my personal opinion on the investments I have made.
The more the YouTube channel grows, the more responsibilities I assume on each content piece, because more people could be influenced by it. However, I believe that each investor should rely on their own judgement, and their own study to determine for themselves whether an investment can be profitable or not.
Disclaimer: Trying, as always, to maintain maximum transparency, I have been actively investing in Bondora for 1 year and this article reports my personal views on investing and creating content. Bondora contacted me to write a guest-post article and I am very happy for the opportunity! This article does not include sponsored content. Finally, I am not a financial advisor, so the information in the article is purely for purposes of entertainment and is not personalized investment advice.
If you’d like to know more about Leonardo’s personal finance experiences and investment analyses, check out his YouTube channel here.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest blogger and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Bondora.