Robocash Review

Robocash Overview

Robocash is Croatia’s most popular (peer-to-peer) P2P lending platform. The platform’s primary focus is to fund short-term loans secured by their 30-day buyback guarantee. The Robocash P2P lending site was founded in 2017 and since then it paid out more than €1.64 M to more than 10,000 investors. Find out more about this platform in this complete review about Robocash.

Robocash in Numbers

Before we talk about the individual categories, let’s have a look at Robocash’s statistics.

So, how does Robocash compare to other P2P lending platforms?

The difference between Robocash and other P2P platforms is that you can invest in loans from other markets. Robocash lists loans from Eastern Europe, Spain, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Russia. Additionally, Robocash funds loans only from the Robocash Group. The group has reached profits of €17.3 M in 2019. Audited financial reports will be available in July 2020.

The second most notable difference is the size. Robocash as a platform isn’t as big as P2P marketplaces such as Mintos or PeerBerry, which also list short-term personal loans.

While you won't find much statistical data on Robocash's website, the platform was keen to provide some additional data which you can find in the table above.

New User Requirements

To be able to invest on Robocash you'll need to meet the following requirements:

No EUR bank account? No problem

• Open a free N26 bank account
• Open a free TransferWise bank account

If you don’t have a bank account in euros, your deposit will be exchanged to euros for the current exchange rate.

Risk and Returns

When investing in P2P lending, you want to make sure your investment is protected. In order to do this, you need to evaluate the ratio between the risks and the returns.

So, let’s have a look at the risks and returns in order to see if Robocash is the platform for you.

As with most P2P lending platforms that list unsecured short-term loans, Robocash also offers a buyback guarantee.

Robocash’s Buyback Guarantee

The buyback guarantee on Robocash is different to many other P2P lending platforms. While platforms like Mintos and PeerBerry offer a 60-day buyback guarantee, Robocash’s period is only 30 days.

This means that you don’t have to wait two months until the buyback guarantee gets activated to receive your money back.

Another benefit of this feature is that the loan originator pays back the outstanding amount and the interest for the delayed period.

This is pretty exceptional - most loan originators on Mintos don’t fork out for both.

This means that your money on Robocash is continuously earning interest, even though the borrower is late with its payments.

Is Robocash Safe?

Many P2P investors often ask whether their investment on a specific platform is safe.

In the past few months, several seemingly legitimate platforms ceased their operations. Investors lost millions of euros.

There is no guarantee that this cannot happen with any platform.

However, you can increase the chances of making the right investment decision by conducting due diligence about the platform you plan to invest on.

Let’s have a look at our background check of Robocash.

Who Runs the Company?

Sergey Sedov runs the Robocash investment platform. He is also the founder and CEO of the parent company, Robocash Group.

Sergey founded the Robocash Group in Russia back in 2013. The Robocash Group provides alternative consumer lending in Europe and Asia. Currently, there are 11 companies operated by the Robocash Group.

The Robocash Investment Robot is a P2P lending platform that allows you to fund some of the Robocash loans in exchange for an attractive annual interest of 14%.

Sergey has over 16 years of experience in business management, marketplace lending, and real estate. According to his LinkedIn profile, Sergey co-founded his first lending company FinTerra back in 2010. Since then, the revenue of his businesses grew exponentially. Sergey also holds a PH.D. in Economics from the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science.

Who is the Company’s Legal Owner?

Sergey is the legal owner of seven companies within the Robocash Group, including the Robocash Investment Robot, where you can invest in consumer loans, originated by Robocash’s loan originators.

Are There Any Suspicious Terms and Conditions?

To decrease the chance of fraudulent behaviors, we always read through the terms and conditions. We look mainly at the following clauses:

1. Are the user’s funds segregated from the company’s funds?
2. Does the platform inform the users about changes in T&C in advance?
3. Are there any other T&C worth mentioning

Let’s have a look at what we have found in Robocash’s T&C.

Clause 4.9 - Storage of Your Funds

In section 4.9, Robocash informs you that all your funds are held in a bank account separated from Robocash’s property. It’s also worth noting that you won’t earn any interest if you do not invest your funds.

This clause gives you a good legal ground in case the platform decides to disable withdrawals or introduce limits to withdrawing and depositing funds. However, a dedicated IBAN account like you get on NEO Finance would increase the safety of your funds even more.

Clause 5.2 - Manual Investments

It is a bit bizarre to read about the terms and conditions for features that aren’t even available on the platform yet. In section 5.1.1, you will find terms for manual investments. In section 5.2.10 and 5.2.11, you can read about the terms for a non-existent secondary market.

This is not a red flag, however, it would make sense to only list terms for features that are actually relevant to the platform, as that would make the T&C more user-friendly.

Clause 6.5 - Transfer of Funds

In section 6.5, you will learn that Robocash only transfers funds to your virtual account if the platform received the payments from the loan originator.

This does not have a significant impact on your portfolio during normal market conditions. However, during a crisis, it can significantly delay incoming funds as the loan originators tend to extend their loan agreements with borrowers.

Clause 14.5 - Amendments

In section 14.5, you learn that Robocash reserves the right to change T&C with prior notice of 60 days.

This is great news as many P2P platforms don't notify the user before they change the terms and conditions.

Do Investors Have Access to Individual Loan Agreements?

While most investors don’t pay attention to the assignment agreements, it gives you a good legal ground in the worst-case scenario, where the platform goes out of business.

You can download all of the assignment agreements under My investments → Investment number. All agreements are available as Microsoft Word Documents rather than PDF files.

👉 Is Peer-to-Peer Lending Safe?

The Platform’s Usability

The safety of your investment does not mean anything if you can’t use the platform correctly.

Robocash is very easy to navigate, and even if you are just starting out with P2P lending, you won’t have a problem getting around.

Auto Invest

Robocash doesn’t allow you to invest manually.

You need to deposit your money and set up your Auto Invest before investing in loans.

The minimum investment amount per loan is only €10 which makes it much easier to diversify your portfolio than is the case on platforms like EstateGuru or Crowdestor, where the minimum investment is €50 per project.

Robocash’s Auto Invest allows you to define your:

Cash Drag

Cash drag occurs when there aren’t many loans available, and often results in your money being left uninvested.

Unfortunately, Robocash is one of the platforms where you’ll likely be subject to cash drag. While temporary cash drag isn’t a big problem, if it occurs for several weeks, you might want to consider relocating your money to a different platform.

Liquidity

Liquidity is another factor that you probably don’t think about, but, it’s really important.

We never know when there will be a financial downturn or other investment opportunities you’re going to be interested in, but one thing we do know is that you’ll want to have quick access to your capital when these times occur.

Robocash recently launched its secondary market for long-term investments.

You can only sell loans with a maturity of one year if you have owned them for at least six months.

If you won't find a buyer within 14 days, Robocash is going to repurchase your investment from you at no additional cost.

Robocash doesn’t offer a secondary market for short-term loans. In this case your capital commitment isn’t usually longer than a few weeks.

Investing on P2P marketplaces or P2P lending site that fund short-term loans make your investments more accessible.

Robocash’s Customer Support

In our experience, the customer support at Robocash is exceptional. Any queries we’ve had have been answered within 24 hours. You can get in touch with them via email (support@robo.cash) or give them a call on +385 1344-58-18. You can also fill out their contact form and the team will get back to you as soon as possible.

Even though Robocash is a small P2P platform from Croatia, you'll appreciate the efforts the team put into providing excellent customer support.

Not all platforms have such a responsive customer support teams like this, as we opposed to Crowdestor, where the support is non-existent.

Robocash Review Summary

Robocash is a solid P2P platform that's very easy to use. The P2P lending site regularly reports about the performance of their portfolio, which increases our trust into the platform's operations. While there's occasional cash drag, Robocash was always able to pay our interest with no delays.

Key Takeaways from our Robocash Review:

• High returns
• Exceptional liquidity
• 30 day buyback guarantee
• Backed by profitable finance group
• Ocassional cash drag

Robocash is currently listing loans with interest of 14% which makes any investment on Robocash very attractive. Sign up now and start earning money.

Ready to invest on Robocash?