ViaInvest Review

First of all, I would like everyone to know that this is a 100% impartial and unbiased review of ViaInvest.

What is ViaInvest?

Based in Riga, Latvia, ViaInvest was founded in December 2016 and is a peer-to-peer marketplace for private lenders to invest in loans originating from non-banking lenders. ViaInvest is owned and operated by VIA SMS Group (est.2008) and its daughter companies issue all loans. Portfolios of non-banking borrower request mainly consist of consumer loan requests across Europe. The loans are issued to consumers in Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Latvia, Romania, and Poland. Through ViaInvest, you can invest in pre-funded loans mainly short-term, but there are a few loans with a 12-month duration as well. You can start by investing with as little as 10 EUR.

Rates

All loans on ViaInvest yield 11%. As you can see, the rate is not as competitive as the ones offered on other platforms, but I like the fact that all of the loans are issued by VIA SMS Groups daughter companies.

Also, by default, ViaInvest deducts a withholding tax from your repayments, unless you send them a copy of your Tax Certificate before making any investments. Without a Tax Certificate, all earnings will be taxed under the legislation of the loan origin country. If the loan origin country is the Czech Republic – Withholding Tax is 15%, if Spain – 19%. ViaInvest does NOT charge Withholding Tax for Latvian and Polish loans which are actually the ones with the highest yield.

Loan liquidity

ViaInvest offers a large number of loans between Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Latvia, Romania, and Poland so you will not have any cash drag issues.

Buyback Guarantee

All loans come with buyback guarantee so ViaInvest will buy back investments in full with accrued interest for the period you held the loan if a borrower is over 30 days late. I like the fact that the Buyback Guarantee gets activated only after 30 days since if you want to withdraw your portfolio, you will not have to wait for an extended period since most of the loans are short-term.

There is also the function of the “Initialize Buyback” button. The Initialize Buyback function allows the investor to cancel his investment in any extended or long-term loan after 120 days since the investment date.

Auto-invest

ViaInvest offers the possibility of auto-investing. I rarely use auto-invest in any platform, but it is nice to know that it’s there. You can create different auto-invest strategies with quite differing parameters, and you can also prioritize any strategy that you prefer. You can check the screenshot to see for yourself the available settings.

Risks

Since all loans on ViaInvest come with Buyback Guarantee, the risk is whether the loan originator will be able to fulfill their promise to you. For more information about the risks from peer-to-peer lending activities, please check the “What Is Peer-to-Peer Lending” article.

Secondary Market

There is no Secondary Market on ViaInvest; however, you can use the “Initialize Buyback” function in any extended or long-term loan after 120 days since the investment date. Unfortunately, approved investments to short-term loans cannot be canceled. To get your funds back from short-term loans, you need to wait until the loan agreement is closed or a Buyback Guarantee is activated.

Fees

ViaInvest charges no fees for investing in their platform which is fairly standard with p2p lending platforms.

Loans

I like the information that ViaInvest provides on the “Loan” and “Borrower Details”, and I also like that it gives you the number of loans taken by that specific individual and “Customer Since” date. This gives you more insight into a particular borrower, and I personally believe that if he has taken ten more loans from the same company, it is unlikely that he will not pay back the 11th.

ViaInvest Sign Up Process

The sign-up process is pretty simple. You can click here (by doing that you are also eligible to receive a 10 EUR sign up bonus) and go through the steps as they are on the screenshots below. It asks for the same information as shown in the second print-screen, but you don’t have to upload any documents until the moment you wish to make a withdraw. The entire process is pretty fast, and it only takes a couple of minutes.

ViaInvest Competitors

You might also want to check platforms like Mintos, Grupeer, Lenndy, PeerBerry, Viventor, FastInvest, Robo.Cash, Iuvo, and Swaper. Also, if you want to try something riskier, you can try Bondora. I will be reviewing them separately as I invest in some of them. You can click here to check platform reviews.