October Loan Originations Up 41%! – Peer-to-Peer Lending Blog

Stats & Data

With €7,802,163 of loans originated in October, Bondora has continued its record-breaking ways. This represents a whopping €2,274,308 increase, or, 41% higher than last month! Higher loan origination has allowed Bondora to offer investors a more diverse array of loans and services across all countries.

The Loan Boom in Finland

While loans in each country saw an uptick during the month of October, it was Finland which carried the majority of the increase for Bondora loans. The share of investments to loans in Finland increased from 28% of the total share of loans to 37%, coming in at €2,876,550. This increase by €1,330,795 was a hugely positive sign for loans on Bondora and showed a strong support for Finnish loans across the board.

Meanwhile, both Spain and Estonia increased loan originations as well, adding to the solid overall performance of Bondora loans. Estonian loans increased by more than 24% month-over-month to €4,771,358. In Spain, loan originations increased by about 8.7% to €154,255. Due to the drastic increase in loan originations in Finland, both Estonia and Spain saw their total market share of investments in Bondora loans for the month decrease, by 8.32% and 0.59% respectively.

Loan Origination by Country - October 2018

An Increase in HR Loans

The aforementioned uptick in loans across Finland can be directly attributed to a notable increase in HR rated loans. While HR rated loans in Finland only accounted for €73,640 in September, that number jumped to €1,319,830 last month (more on why below). The only downtrend of loans in Finland for the month were C and F rated loans which only experienced a slight decrease in loan origination.

Once again, HR rated loans in Spain offered the highest interest rate, at 70.52%, while Finnish A rated loans came in at the lowest interest of 9.32%, the only category across all countries with single-digit returns. Compared to last month the largest increase in Spain came from E rated loans which rose close to 65% to €8,390. Meanwhile, F rated loans saw a slight 3% decrease to €116,715.

As a by-product of issuing more loans in Finland and acquiring new customers, we’ve taken a conservative approach by assigning more borrowers a Bondora Rating of HR.

In November, we expect to issue less HR loans and more F rated loans instead. Nevertheless, HR loans remain a part of our balanced portfolio overall. For example, HR loans account for less than an 8% share of the total ratings in the Go & Grow portfolio, compared to a share of 17% for C rated loans.

Share by rating, country and amount - October 2018

A Trend Emerges

While investments rose as a whole on the month, there is an obvious investment trend by Bondora customers in Estonian loans, where loan issuances across mid-grade ratings were the most sizable trend of the month.

Across all of Bondora, 47.9%, of loan originations, or €3,736,138, went to C, D, or E rated loans out of Estonia. This represents a solid increase of more than 8% month-over-month. Additionally, loans across these three ratings categories were split almost evenly, all within a 1% total market share of one another.

Looking back even further, this trend in Estonian loans began several months ago and has continued to move steadily forward. It appears as though investors have taken a liking to the stability of Estonia, which, over time, has become a solid European economy.