viainvest Review: Is it good? Don't invest before you read this!
Author
Reza Machdi-Ghazvini, CAIAWhat is viainvest?
viainvest is a P2P platform from Riga in Latvia, founded in 2016.
It is a subsidiary of VIA SMS Group, which is also based in Latvia.
Almost without exception, viainvest only offers P2P loans from loan brokers (loan originators) that belong to the same company.
Since its inception, the platform has financed loans worth approximately €350 million, making it one of the mid-sized P2P platforms in Europe.
How does viainvest earn money?
As a subsidiary of VIA SMS Group, the platform passes on its profits and losses to the parent company.
The parent company earns its money from interest income, commissions and other income from operations.
Who owns viainvest?
viainvest is 100% owned by the VIA SMS Group.
How safe (reputable) is viainvest? Is viainvest legal?
viainvest is supervised by the Latvian Financial Market Authority, which should ensure its seriousness.
Furthermore, the platform has brokered loans worth more than €350 million and has proven itself during recent crises, for example during the Corona crisis.
Accordingly, there is no doubt on our part about its safety.
The platform follows a legal business model and is embedded in a reputable financial company.
How does viainvest work?
To invest on viainvest, you first have to register online and then deposit money via bank transfer.
With the transfer you also confirm the bank account to which you can then make withdrawals.
After that you can invest directly in the offered credits.
To start investing you need to invest at least 50 €.
After that you can decide whether you want to invest manually or automatically via Auto Invest.
On viainvest you can only invest on the primary market (first issue of loans), because unfortunately no secondary market (loans from other investors) is offered.
On viainvest you do not invest directly in loans, but through securities in loan pools (multiple loans).
These securities are secured with these loans and accordingly their value depends on them.
That is why they are also called asset-backed securities and they are also known as "asset-backed securities".
The securities differ according to:
Country (origin of the loans),
interest rate (coupon)
maturity and
Amount (volume).
The best way to show this is with an example.
Example of a security on viainvest
Country: Sweden
Interest rate: 13
Term: 182 days
Amount: 2.260 €
If you would invest 226 € in this security, you would invest over it in 10% of the bundled loans.
The P2P loans offered on the platform all have an official security identification number (ISIN or WKN), as you may know it from other securities such as ETFs or shares.
How can I invest on viainvest?
On the platform you can choose every single loan you want to invest in.
This is especially useful if you want to invest your money quickly in the beginning and then invest via Auto Invest.
Otherwise, manual investing would be associated with a lot of effort, which is why automatic investing is preferable in our opinion.
The platform offers an automatic investment function with Auto Invest.
You can specify which loans you want to invest in with the following settings.
Interest rate,
Countries (lenders),
Loan type,
Term (in days) and
status.
Auto Invest is very streamlined and self-explanatory.
You can set it up to your liking within minutes.
What warning signals should I be aware of at viainvest?
At the moment we have not noticed any warning signals with viainvest.