Twino review shows that Twino is Latvian-based peer-to-peer lending marketplace, focused on the unsecured consumer loans. Company was founded in 2009 and originally known as Finabay.
In 2015, Twino launched an investment marketplace, offering investors from across Europe the opportunity to earn premium returns by investing in unsecured consumer loans originated by its daughter companies in Poland, Georgia, Denmark and Russia.
In combination with the company’s strong management team, local presence and proprietary scoring models, the investment marketplace fuels the growth of the company in the existing markets, as well as its geographical expansion.
With more than 1 bln euros lent, 600 employees across 9 different offices puts Twino as a peer to peer lending platform in a leading position.
Twino review: key facts
| Estimated annual returns: | 11%+ |
| Launched: | 2009 |
| Autoinvest: | Yes |
| Loan security: | Personal guarantess |
| Provision fund: | No |
| Buyback guarantees: | Yes |
| Registered investors: | NA |
| Minimal investment: | €10 |
| Time to become invested: | 1-5 days |
| Time needed managing: | Low |
| Regulation: | Not regulated |
| Country of operation: | Latvia |
| Defaulted loans: | NA |
| Borrowers verification: | By the platform |
| Accepted currencies: | Pounds, Euros |
| Accepts investors from: | Europe |
The Twino Review: Pros and Cons
PROS
- Offers impressive loan volumes, so with reasonable conditions money can be invested in a few hours
- Buyback guarantee
- Geographical diversity for loan originators gives an opportunity to diversify investments across different regions
- Strong underwriting team with more than 600 employees
- Fast and steady communication with investors
- Investments can be done in euros and pounds
CONS
- Impossible to check how the platform works unless you deposit money
- Since December 2016, Twino have been offering lenders the opportunity to invest in Russian loans. These are at a huge interest to the borrowers, over 100%, but after defaults and Twino’s fees it’s expected lenders will earn around 14%.
Competitors:
Twino review: What I have experienced so far…
I opened Twino investment account in July 2017. I really like Twino position on peer to peer lending. So far, I can say that Twino has easy-to-use and generally understandable interfaces and reporting systems make keeping track of your investments and changing settings relatively fast and easy. Note that although the British Pound account sounds great to reduce currency risk, it may not be that easy for money transfers. However, I think this option has been developed to serve UK investors. Twino platform also has an auto invest tool that that allows you to spread investments according to your preferences, for example 11%+ with BuyBack guarantee. Under the BuyBack Guarantee investor protection scheme, TWINO will compensate the investors both the invested principal amount and interest, as well as pay the accrued interest in case a borrower is late with the repayment for over 30 days.
I also like that there is a possibility to diversify across different loans originators. However, hands-off model also means lack of significant info on the risks of originators and potential losses. This being particularly true for the non-buyback loans which both have started to offer.
Overall, I think it is one of the most advanced p2p lending platforms in the Europe and hopefully to see Twino fast development in the future as well.
January 16, 2019
Good p2p platform