With all the events that happened in 2020, including the fall of a few P2P investment platforms plus a global pandemic turning the world upside down, in this 2021 trust has become one of the most important pillars -if not the most critical- for an investor to make a decision whether to invest in a P2P lending company or not.
The P2P lending landscape has changed, and now we as investors tend to be much more cautious and critical with the platforms we join, seeking always quality information to validate our opinions and experience with that particular investment company.
In this context, today we have with us Janis Eismonts, founder of SneakyPeer, a project that is giving form to an analytics platform designed for crowdlending and P2P investors to help them make data-driven decisions to -in the end- lose less and earn more.
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1 – Hello Janis, welcome to TodoCrowdlending.com!, first of all, for all the people that come across your project for the first time… can you please briefly describe the concept, mission and goals of SneakyPeer? How do you set in motion an ambitious project like this, what is the main driving force?
Thank you for having me, Jesus, glad to be here! In essence, Sneakypeer is a data-driven analytics platform aimed at peer-to-peer investors to help them make educated, informed investment decisions. Our goal le grande, is to actually structure the industry, as it is yet to establish – kind of serve as an auditor, ranking agency and establish guidelines for newcomers into market, while, at the same time, safeguard the investors from fraud and scams.
The whole idea of this project came alive around the time when two notable players in the market, Envestio and Kuetzal, disappeared with millions of dollars of investors money, thus having co-founders and I question – which platform is next to fall? On contrary, peer-to-peer lending is a massive development in the realm of financial technology that provides marginalized, underbanked people with access to capital making it an attractive market to enter.
2 – Let’s talk a bit about the team, aside from you, an expert in Law and Economics and certified AML Officer, who are the key people behind this project and what do they bring to SneakyPeer?
Our team also includes specialists in other industries, that have developed expertise in investment analytics, risk-assessment, market making, so on so forth. Most notably, our research team is led by a distinguished academic and experienced advisor on both corporate and governmental level. With his help, we are developing our scoring models and mathematical backbone to this project.
3 – Taking a look at your roadmap, I see you have come a long way in a relatively short time, what is the path planned from here?
Launch new features every month, expand assortment of platforms, dive deeper in risk analysis and provide more in-depth research in that realm. The most notable extension which we are planning, is the development of our own Sneakypeer FUND which I will describe a bit later.
4 – How confident are you about anticipating / detecting early scams and supporting investment decisions with your algorithm / tools?, for example, could it have helped us avoid fraudulent platforms revealed in the past?
I personally believe, that Sneakypeer algorithm and analytics tool will never be fully developed, as this industry keeps evolving rapidly. New models, new loans, new structures, new developments happen on a daily basis, that we must take into the account when conducting our analysis. In respect to the confidence, I am extremely assertive of our teams ability to provide fail-proof, data-driven evidence on each of the platform and the respective investment risk.
Regarding the scams, we have already identified couple of platforms that are in the red when it comes to the investment safeguarding – the information is accessible on our website (www.sneakypeer.com) as we speak. The analytics and current decisions regarding the scoring and categorization is derived from numbers and past case-studies – those two never lie.
5 – How many platforms will you cover in your reports?, which ones?, can you provide examples?
At the moment, we launched the product with 10+ platforms, however, our aim is to ramp-up this number to 35-40 by the end of the 2021. The list contains platforms such as Mintos, Twino, the most known ones, together with others like IBANWallet and Debitum to name a few.
6 – How often will you update these reports?, will you provide alert services when major changes are detected?
Real-time, 24/7, 365 days a year. It is done automatically, with supervision of our research team. Regarding the alerts, when we started the development of the platform, it was noticed, that due the ever-changing landscape of peer-to-peer industry, it was extremely hard to keep track of every development, not to mention how each of these changes impacts the investment risk. Therefore, my answer to the question concerning alerts is yes, we do provide alerts.
7 – What is going to be the cost for using the platform? Are you providing some functionality for free?, how are you going to sustain SneakyPeer in the long term?
Sneakypeer business model will rely on recurring revenue, in other words, we are a subscription-based platform. At the moment, while we develop the features, upgrade the website, extend our platform assortment, there are two plans available – freemium and risk-alert plan. By the Q2, 2021 we plan to also implement the pro plan for more sophisticated investors.
When talking about sustainability, we have pledged, as a company, to invest more than 1 million euros into the peer-to-peer loans ourselves, whilst using the tools we have developed, as our primary research vehicle when allocating the portfolio. This will not only help us to access more in-depth data about loans, but also will in a way show our solidarity to our fellow investors. We are with you in this!
8 – OK, let’s say I am interested in knowing more about this risk scoring tool / project. What can I do from here?
Firstly, I would suggest to visit our website at www.sneakypeer.com, and explore our project and try out the demo. After, it is up to each one of you to decide if you are willing to commit less than a Netflix subscription to access tools for data-driven investment decisions.
Thanks very much for your time, Janis!
