P2P Conference in Riga? Have you ever heard of it? Or even Riga?

Riga is the capital of Latvia. It is situated in the Baltic area below Finland. Since several years the Baltic states are good known in Europe for their increasing digitization.

Latvia, as well as Estonia and Lithuania are typical countries in northern Europe. Huge forest, rough climate and open minded people – I really enjoy being in the northern part of Europe. This time is was just not for vacations, but for business reasons: visiting the P2P Conference.

Interesting topics and pitches at the P2P Conference

I was a bit uncertain what to expect from this event. Knowing some people there I booked my flight from Cologne to Riga and joined the event. The first day (friday) was packed with panel discussions about the different P2P lending topics.

Surprisingly the topics were quite critical. As I mentioned I did not really know what to expect. Flying to Riga for just a conference full of advertisements and barkers was not the event I would have been glad with. Critical topics on a conference are quite a huge quality stamp in my eyes.

So all the CEO, influencers and investors discussed about the trends and markets in peer to peer lending. Especially the discussion about the increasing investment-volumes was very interesting. Several people think, that the P2P investments will spike within the next years and afterwards correct sharply.

Behind “the scenes” of P2P lending

The P2P Conference had its own program. All investors and visitors were invited to join the stages. Beside the main stage for panel discussion and the official program there was another stage in another room. Here all of the P2P platforms were able to pitch theirself in front of the crowd.

I just participated in a few pitches, but the atmosphere was great. Quite familiar and you were able to ask you own questions. Additionally the presentations were quite detailed. I was able to understand even more of their concept, that I could find on the website.

This was a huge advantage for me on the P2P Conference, because you are usually not able to get that much information. I talked to several people and all of them were quite interested in answering questions beside the usual FAQ-questions.

bulkestate, DoFinance or Reinvest24?

To be honest my personal challenge was to get connected to anyone at the P2P Conference. Asking questions, getting in touch und receiving more information is really important for me, as I am willing the lend money on those platforms.

With Toms Abele from DoFinance I had a very interesting discussion about the worldwide P2P portfolio. As most of the P2P platforms are acting in the Baltic area there could be possibly an areal risk in your portfolio.

So I was especially interested in any information about P2P investments worldwide. Toms showed me, where and how DoFinance is investing in P2P loans in Indonesia, which was very interesting.

Additionally I am highly interested in investing in P2P loans in Asia as I think, that Asia will be the economic place to be within the next five years.

Real estate with P2P lending?

Real estate seems to be the hottest and newest shit in P2P lending. Most of the people know about Estateguru and their concept. At the P2P conference I got in touch with Timo from bulkestate. They are mainly offering real estate investments in Latvia and here mainly in Riga.

Igors from bulkestate at the P2P Conference in Riga

The team of the CEO Igors seems to be very motivated to rock the P2P real estate market within the next years. As they are trying to get their platform as liquid as possible it is instantly growing.

Timo was especially for german investors at the bulkestate, as he spoke german, which I really enjoyed. Thanks to Timo and bulkestate for the interesting introduction at your booth as well at your pitch.

Reinvest24 with a VR-Gadget and interesting information

Reinvest24 offered a bicycle-ride with VR-glasses on their booth. Of course this a gadget to get in touch with investors.

But this shows, that the employees are willing and motivated to do unusual things. As VR is not really the topic in P2P lending Reinvest24 is acting different as a P2P platform.

P2P Conference: Tanel Orro and Reinvest24 team found on their facebook-page

CEO Tanel Orro was very open for questions about their business model. As Reinvest24 offers their investors to invest in real estate, the investor does not lend the money for a loan. The investors gets part of the real estate investment. His yield is payed by the rent for the real estate.

The market is not that liquid as usual and additionally there are fees you have to pay as an investor. But in the longrun I think I will do a test on that platform soon, because the concept is quite interesting.

Checking the Mintos-App with the P2P-Millionaire

What a headline, right? By accident I ran into Scrappy from p2p-millionaire.com. If you do not know the website, you should definitely check it out. But back to the P2P conference. Scrappy and I were at the Mintos booth at the same time and were asked about a prototype of the Mintos-App.

As we have never met before, it was very interesting that we quite the same requirements to the Mintos-App as investors. If you check the p2p-millionaire-website you will recognize the huge investments of about € 1.5m.

I will catch up, but for now the amount is ways bigger than mine. But still the requirements are more or less the same. So I hope we gave some good and intentional advices to Mintos for developing their app.

And thanks to Scrappy for your time and the coffee afterwards while chatting about your opinion and goals in P2P lending.

What do I have learned from the P2P conference?

At first I really want to thank Heiko, Karlis, Dawid, Oskars and anyone else from the TargetCircle-team for setting up such a great event. It was worth any Euro for me to travel to Riga and you made those two days very valuable for me.

To be honest I am usually not the person to connect and chat at his own will. But I do not know anyone who reached financial freedom while living in the forest and hunting deers.

So the P2P conference was a great task for me. Additionally it was the beginning of my new carrer as an active investor trying to get in touch with his investments and investment opportunities.

I am thankful for what I was able to experience. And I am really looking forward to 2020 to visit the P2P conference again. In my eyes you should visit the fair as an investor. I found a lot of information and answers to several P2P platforms as well as individual questions about my own strategy.

And of course I took a lot of to-dos with me from the conference. Several to-dos for this blog, to show you more or the P2P world, but as well as to-dos for my own investment strategy.

Talking to the persons in charge of the P2P platforms I was able to be more trusty (or not) by now and it was great to get to know you all.