Bondora Review: Is it good? Don't invest before you read this!
Author
Reza Machdi-Ghazvini, CAIAWhat is Bondora?
Bondora is a P2P platform from Tallinn in Estonia, founded in 2009.
The P2P loans offered on the platform are brokered by the platform itself under the same name.
Since its inception, the platform has funded more than €650 million worth of P2P loans and is one of the larger P2P platforms in Europe.
How does Bondora make money?
Bondora makes its money mainly through interest income, commissions and other income from operations.
Since virtually no fees are charged to investors, this is the only source of income.
Who owns Bondora?
The exact ownership structure is not known.
However, we assume that the majority share is held by the founders Pärtel Tomberg, Mihkel Tasa and Martin Rask.
Other shares are held by Supervisory Board members Joao Monteiro, Mati Otsmaa, Phil Austern and by financial companies Valinor Management LLC from the USA and Global Founders Capital GmbH Co from Germany.
How safe (reputable) is Bondora? Is Bondora legal?
Bondora is officially supervised by the Estonian Financial Market Authority and has successfully funded loans on a very large scale.
For these two reasons mentioned above, we rate Bondora as safe and also assume a legal business model.
How does Bondora work?
To invest on Bondora, you must first register online and then deposit money via a bank transfer.
With your first deposit via a standard bank transfer, you also confirm the bank account to which withdrawals can be made.
After that you can start investing directly.
On Bondora you have to invest at least 1 € and you also have to keep in mind that you can only invest automatically.
While previously you could choose from the three investment programs Bondora Go & Grow, Bondora Portfolio Manager and Bondora Portfolio Pro, now you can only invest through Go & Grow.
Furthermore, you can invest on Bondora in two markets, the primary market (initial issuance of loans) and the secondary market (loans from other investors).
How can I invest on Bondora?
On Bondora, you cannot individually choose the loans you want to invest in. This is at least true for the primary market.
The situation is different on the secondary market, where you can choose the loans individually.
In the case of automatic investments, only Bondora Go and Grow (Unlimited) is now available. The other options are no longer offered.
Bondora Go & Grow is something special in our opinion. The program is also offered by iuvo under the name iuvoSave.
Simply put, Bondora Go & Grow is just about a very simple way to invest in P2P loans, where the money is available on a daily basis (except in exceptional situations). But for that, you have to accept a big discount in interest rates.
Bondora Bonus
If you want to get a bonus of €5 on Bondora, all you have to do is register for it via our bonus link*.
What are the warning signs to watch out for at Bondora?
Currently, we have not noticed any warning signals at Bondora.