Funding Societies Pte Ltd - 112 Robinson Rd

Bad loans and high default rate owing to poor due diligence.. Overall negative returns for me. While the company tries to hide behind statistics that default is less than 2% blah blah, that's not what I or some of the other reviewers experienced. Disappointed. Will not invest again.

Been investing with Funding Societies since last 14 months. I also invest with a couple of other platforms doing P2P lending in Singapore. So far my experience with Funding Societies has been quite good. The mobile app is quite user friendly and they are very quick to respond to my questions. I faced a few defaults but my overall return has been about 7%+ after accounting for defaults and service fees. I followed the advice of some of my friends who have been investing in P2P since last few years in US and UK. I have invested in more than 100 loans on the platform and always invest within a particular amount range and never deviate from the amount, irrespective of how attractive the deal is. This has helped me to ensure that even if i face a few defaults, my portfolio does not get impacted much. A friend of mine made that mistake of investing a big amount in a loan he thought was very safe and then that loan defaulted and his overall returns came down to 3% even though rest of his portfolio hardly has any defaults. I have started investing more into their Property backed investment and Guaranteed Investment products during COVID since i believe they are a lot safer in this environment.

Efficient team and many investment opportunities, like the auto invest feature. The team does their best to filter out companies when lending the money. BUT THIS IS HIGH RISK INVESTMENT YOU CAN LOSE ALL YOUR CAPITAL. Don’t go in if you can’t accept defaults on payments.

Pros - good platform, professional team, strong shareholders, largest selection of deals, allows honest SMEs alternative funding Cons - For a financial product, can only be good if returns are positive which has not been for me. 1. Default/delinquency rate is much higher as those in-recovery are not included till they have run the gamut. This is why investors and company have such differing views on this. Its 1.x% to coy and up to 30-40% for some investors. 2. If the platform is good, why high referral fee of $50 to induce introductions? I don't think this should be done especially since losses can be heavy. 3. As most loans are short-dated, if you deposit 100 dollars, you have to invest in 1 year, more than 100 dollars. As such, your actual deliquency even at 1.x% is higher as you have to cycle your capital more than 1x. 4. For finance and accounting, the underlying premise is always to be conservative. Should classify all late loans as non-performing or delinquent instead of current practice of in-recovery and non-delinquent.

I have been using their P2P platform, since Nov 2020. What I like about their platform. Their loan fact sheets, makes it simple to understand the SME business key numbers, without overwhelming you. Can start from relatively small amount, very low possibility of burning your account. Loan deals available almost every week. Short loan periods of 1 year or less. Variety of businesses, from different industries. Low default rate. IMO, they are one of the better platforms in the region.

As a sme taking it's loan, the service is satisfactory. But when I sign the contract, I had overlook one particular point which is purely my fault. The late payment penalty. As Covid rage on, B2B SME faced cashflow issues. So repaying business loan on time might be a challenge. I am one of them. I am not proud of it but is it what is it. To my surprise, the late penalty is 12% WEEKLY of the amount due that respective month. 12% weekly my goodness... And it is call late payment admin fee. I admit, I should have been more careful when I sign the contract but I reckon 12% weekly penalty of the payment due on the respective month is really too much. Just imagine by 4 weeks (End of the month) that is 48% ... and as it roll.... Please be more aware...

Do NOT invest with them, they can not retrieve back all the campaign funds lost during covid period. and they will give bunch of excuses despite their promises in the begining that every campaign will have guarantee assets. Basically all those guarantee assets and person are useless, just to trick you that the funds are safe while they can not do anything about it. they just want to take the fees out of you and never do their job to protect investor money. Stay away!

Seamless way to invest in relatively risk-free debt instruments. I'm beginning to see more crowd-funding opportunities lately, which is ideal for me to park cash and get that 5 to 8% pa in a safe environment! Beats putting my cash into a bank deposit account!