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[["The UI and UX of the mobile and web app is the best among others P2P lending platform that I have came across. First introduced to this during Seedly PFF 2019 and has been using since. Very user friendly, easy to navigate, and the app is very snappy too. Also the level of detail in the fund that Funding Societies provide is unparalleled, like I can see how many times I have invested in this borrower, and how much early repayment and late interest I have received etc.\n\nI like the fact that the deposit and withdrawal can be done anytime at no fees involved! I know some other P2P platforms which charge fees for withdrawal and has minimum amount for withdrawal.\n\nOn the other hand, the fund/facility being issued is very little, to the point that there can be a few lull weeks where there are no fund to invest in. \n\nAlso, the fact that most investment has to start at SGD20. Comparatively, Capital Match, another P2P lending platform allows the investment to go as fractional as SGD0.01 in cents, which allows for more investors to participate and allows for better diversification which is a very important factor to consider when investing in P2P platform.\n\nMoreover, there is no prefunding for the funds/facilities in Funding Societies. You can either do auto-allocation to autoinvest, and that's if you are allocated, which is randomized, or you could camp and click to fund in a fastest-fingers-first fashion. I have resorted to setting alarm reminder for such, which could be better if there is a pre-fund option for which you could just choose and pre-fund before the funding round starts.\n\nOn another perspective, I am also using Funding Societies for investing in the Malaysia P2P lending scene, though SG has a strong no default rate so far, I wouldn't say the same for other countries like Malaysia. Bear in mind that default do happens and it can be higher than the interest you have earned.", "[Others]\nKYC is a must including uploading of documents. Fixed $100 for first deposit though you can withdraw later. Subsequent deposit can be any amount.\n\nEvery deposit needs to be requested, and this includes uploading a transfer receipt submission. This is a pain point although it has a drag and drop function. A copy and paste function will be more convenient as no saving of file will be needed - just use window's snipping tool and copy and paste. \n\n[Customer Support]\nCS do reply quickly. What i like is that there is a button at the bottom right of the screen allowing you to start a conversation anytime. It also stores all your previous conversations and you can always revisit it - pretty much like a whatsapp. Announcements are also logged here after showing up after logging in although it will be also sent via email too. \n\n\n[User Friendliness]\nThe overview page:\nUI is pretty good with a chart of your returns every month. Below the chart is a detailed breakdown of total income and expenses including:\n-Deals Invested\n-Interests Received\n-Early fees received\n-Late interests received\n-Bonus received\n-service fees\n\nFurther down is a summary of investment, withdrawal and deposit activities.\nFor more details, each category can be visited at the top of the screen under Menu/my dashboard. \n\nPortfolio Tab:\ntldr: There is an export CSV function which you should probably use to table and filter the data.\n\nShows a summary of the loans including expected repayment this month, Due unpaid this month and principal defaulted. Expected repayments can help you plan if you need to make more deposits this month. \n\nYou can search your portfolio using repayment/investment status to locate defaulted/ missed payment loans. Can also see the actual and expected payment per month although they are on 2 different tabs and you have to switch between them to compare the difference.\n\nAnother pain point is that you have to manually expand all the loans to view more details. you are better off using the export csv function.\n\n\n[Portfolio Diversification]\nThere are many loans available and those small loans are often capped at max $20 which there are little chances to make manual investments. Use auto bot.\n\nThere are many different types of loans available ranging from invoice financing, business term loan, to more safe ones like secured loan, guaranteed returns investments. The newly introduced type is revolving credit facility. \n\nYou can set up your auto bot to invest in each type of loan. \n\n[Loyalty programme]\nFS Privilege Investor Loyalty program. Blue, silver, gold, platinum, prestige tiers.\n\nEveryone starts at blue tier which gives you Live Chat Support and Auto Invest.\n\nSilver requires 5000 points a year, gold requires 50,000 points in one year. I guess most retail investors falls in silver category which allows you access to promotions & events and Auto Invest upgrade: SME exposure limit. This is on top of blue privilege.\n\n\n[Lending Experience]\nAnnualised Portfolio Performance 7.64% with 13.5k invested(not total deposits). These numbers are affected by pretty much the type of loans you choose/your auto bot invests in. \n\n \n[Debt Recovery]\nWhen there is a default, FS will choose to start legal action. The legal cost is crowdfunded (and totally optional - read on), Any sum awarded/ results from the legal action will first pay off the crowdfunded fees, then the loans of those who have contributed to the legal fees, and lastly the rest of the investors. \n\nIn a few loans regarding a borrower, FS itself has also contributed 2k to each crowdfunded legal fees which was heartening. \n\nThere are also cases where principal are fully recovered with a minor write-off in interests. ", '[Lending Experience]\nJoined the FS platform in November as recommended by a colleague. Surprise to see that the signup verification was relatively fast. Deposit is not as straightforward as you must submit proof of deposit manually via a screenshot. Investment opportunities are plenty, roughly 1 or 2 openings every day. Notifications are excellent through emails and apps push notification. Investment opening tend to get snapped up within 10 minutes and so inbuild autobot (automatic investment) is good to have.\n\nI would recommend FS if you are willing to go through the initial signup, manual deposit and setting up autobot to your likings. It might be worth your initial effort if you are planning to invest large sum of money and over a long timeframe.\n\nFS could improve by automating deposit (like xfers), integrating MyInfo in the signup process, allows 2FA via Google Authenticator and improving the slightly confusing web interface (mobile app is good).', '[Lending Experience]\nI have been using this app for a few months now and I really enjoy using it! It has good, simple customer user interface which is a breeze to set up an account, top up and start investing. Another feature worth mentioning is the autobot set up for investing, it’s an awesome function as the system will allocate for you and start to opt-in for deals. \n\nIt is also easy to monitor portfolio and payments via the icon tabs, looking forward to future enhancements. \n\n[Risk Assessment] \nDetailed factsheet materials provided for own’s self assessment prior to investing. Any doubts you can send a chat message. \n\n[Customer Support]\nI look forward when there are new deals announced via app and email notification. The level of responsiveness from funding societies is so efficient as they have a chatbot via the app and even after working hours you can use it and leave your message and receive a reply the next day, replies are often quick and resolves your doubts. Funding societies also organize monthly investors session to meet at their office to understand more about the product and company and for them to address any doubts, this is good for beginners who are intending to invest. ', 'Good financial products that provides exposure to private investment opportunities which retail investors have little access to ', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ["I exceptionally love the customer support whereby very prompt and helpful responses are given! Although, I'd wish for more learning support for beginners and more projects on sustainability :)", 'Customer Service team is responsive. Satisfied with the number of deals thus far. Unlike most crowdlending platforms in SG, FS has a mobile app which makes ease of investing, transferring funds and tracking investments very easy. This is the reason I use FS despite some platforms having more transparency', 'Attended an investor event hosted by funding societies. The team has been very professional and patient about handling investor questions. Just started on the auto-invest, look forward to this becoming a significant channel for SME financing. ', "Overall, it's a trusted platform to put some spare money. A bit of lack of portfolio transparency calculation, sometimes confusing. Recently a sudden rise of defaulted loans from the same borrowers causes my overall return rate dropped by half...", 'Interesting retail product that provides a different investment opportunity that is usually hard to get into, ie debt. Took a while to get used to their interface but they have put effort into making it user friendly. ', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['[User Friendliness]\nApplication looks modern and very intuitive. Might be good if we have the light version as the current one is on dark version.', 'It’s A Great platform to start investing. I was an absolute beginner but it was easy to get a hang of it. The staff and chat bot on the app made it a great experience because whenever I am not sure about how to get started or how to set up certain things on the app, they’d get back to be Super quickly!\n\nI love how friendly yet reliable the staff at funding societies are especially when we are talking about our hard earn money. \n\nSo far I only experience a minor tech issue once, but to my surprise they solved it right away.\n\nIf you’re new to investing and want a safer way to go about it, this platform is the way to go. Investing only small amounts in each project is a great way of distributing risk and the auto invest functions were great. They’ll pick out the project that fits all your listed requirements. \n\nWay to go! So far I experienced 0 defaults. Continue the great work team! ', 'Everything was quite smooth from activation to investment to withdrawal. Good that there are no withdrawal or deposit fees. Have done most of my investments automatically. Return is about 6-8% after defaults per annum.\n\nDefaults are not mythical so please do diversify and choose less risky products like secured loans if you are risk averse.\n\nOverall, it is a good alternative to fixed deposits and government bonds, if you have the risk appetite', 'It would help if you can sort the investments based on expected next payment date & maturity date so we can plan our investments better.\n\n If the expected Portfolio returns can be segregated into two ways of analysing: 1. based on total invested funds; & 2. Based on total deposited funds, it will give a more holistic assessment of our expected returns.', 'Easy to use and monitor. However, not easy to get deals due to more lenders than borrowers. Have to be quick. But deals are so far quite safe and it is understandable that it is limited due to their stringent checks to minimise risk.', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['Investor since Jun 2017. Had been through more than 150 investments. Annualised performance in app shows 11.9%. Responsive customer service!\n\n11 Dec 2019\n241 investments. 10.71%. Defaulted amount $369.10.', "FS is a great platform in P2P investing if you're not an experienced investor and a new beginner in investment. Sometimes the companies can return you partial or missing payment in return. The Support team is friendly and helpful to answer my questions. Thank you :) ", '[Customer Support]\nVery good customer support backing up the automated bot support. Customer support staff are prompt in their responses and provide accurate information.', '[User Friendliness]\nExcellent customer experience with feature rich application. Both desktop and mobile app versions are very easy to use and transact.', 'A very user friendly platform in both web and app version. Multiple and frequent SME loan investment opportunities provided with minimum investment sum of only S$20. ‘Bots’ function provided to automate investments (based on your preferences) if you are spoiled for choices. Prompt customer service to assist if there are any queries/issues.', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['Easy to use and pretty no brained. Would be great if we had the option to see how the repayment will be main. Some repayment are in 10 separate payments, some 5 some 1, maybe an indication will give investors more liquidity', 'I got referred by my friend and the platform is very easy to use. I liked the bot function to invest the money. ', 'Very easy to set-up and use. Since last year, I believed they have streamlined the process even more because when I was setting it up for my girlfriend, the agreement and questionnaire part was much faster and straightforward.\n\nBank transfer the money and wait for it to clear, then look at which loans you want to invest it. You can even simulate the returns to see how much you can get back.\nI’ve set up auto bot since and it gives you good parameters to limit how they help invest your money. You can even opt-out before the loan starts. \n\nIt also gives u a detailed statement of your account. High transparency of your earnings and fees paid.\n\nJust note that while the interest rates are high, it means the investments are riskier too.\n\nOne of the best financial apps out there. I highly recommended it to friends to invest their spare cash. The platform has introduced several new features to enhance the experiences and value, like Guaranteed investments. ', "I am still pretty new to the application, but I'm quite satisfied with the application so far. It gives the newbies more ways of utilizing the money instead of just putting in a savings account. The app also provides reports for us to read which can certainly help us make improved decision making in the long run. \n\nThere are, however, a few things that I could not resolve:\n\n1. Sometimes the bot doesn't automatically allocate the amount for me, even though I have set the right category and range. \n\n2. If I were to opt-out of one of the crowdfunding that the bot has allocated for me, I do not get a chance to opt back in. The reason why I was testing this out was that I wanted to allocate more funds than what the bot allocated. \n\nOverall, still a great experience so far. Maybe if the app can show some similarities between all the defaulted companies, it might give a better knowledge of what to invest in the future. ", 'Overall a very good experience with funding societies. Deposit of money is no issue, but always have to monitor the balance and plan ahead as there will be a delay in updating of accounts. \n\nThe interface is also very sleek to let you know the deals upcoming, the amounts you have already invested etc. \n\nMy main areas for improvement would be:\n1. Auto investment: This bot mysteriously fails sometimes, in that it just does not invest into the deal. This is different from the times the max number of investors have been reached\n\n2. Portfolio transparency: although you can see what are the deals you have invested into and the total cash flow this month, it would be better if the cash flows can be projected month by month. Currently there is no way to filter the deals by month and you have to scroll yourself, which is not efficient. Hence as an investor, I can’t be sure how my cash flow will look like, and it makes me hesitant to invest more until I get back more of my initial investment\n\n3. Income transparency: I don’t see a way to generate a monthly report of which deals have repaid principal and/or interest. Basically I want to make sure every cent is being accounted for, and the platform currently doesn’t really help me in that, although I could arguably do this manually\n\n4. Investing into new deals: when there are several deals opening at the same time, i find that deals that have already been auto invested into are still at the top, and I end up accidentally investing more than intended. Would be better if deals already invested into drop to the bottom of the list, since as investors we probably want to diversify. \n\nThank you for reading!', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['App is easy to use. Would love to have more deals to invest in. Currently the auto invest does not always work, and I tend to need to be in the app at the time of the deal. However, 95% of the time when I am at the app at the time of the deal, I manage to participate. So far, no defaults for me so I’m happy with it! The staff are ever ready to help me with my needs, and are very prompt!', 'First time using crowdfunding service. \nUsing the app in iOS. Sign up was a breeze. \nThe login experience is excellent and fuss free with face id. \n\nDashboard is clear and concise of my overall investment performance and funds usage. \n\nPortfolio page is nicely summarised and showing upcoming ROIs. \n\nUpcoming investments are clearly shown in a table format with pdf factsheet. The factsheet info is sufficient for beginner investors. \n\nDepositing funds into this could be improved and this is the only area that I would like to highlight. \nIt requires manual verification by the staff after we transfer funds into the account, by noon next day. This can cause missed opportunities. \nPerhaps, a system for automation in this area will improve the user experience even more! \n\n[Customer Support]\nThere is an automated robot reply after your questions. However, the staff will also reply back after awhile. Adding the human touch to the communication. \n\n \nOverall, good experience with this crowdfunding service so far. ', 'Signing up was fast with no fuss. Customer service was great with swift responses received on queries sent. New products were being rolled out for lower risk appetite investors n this is a great initiative. Would definitely recommend this platform to others. ', 'Firstly, the sign up experience is easy. I was able to get an account fairly quickly and without much trouble. The only one small thing I noticed was the user experience on the web and on mobile is slightly different, but it was fine as you can still figure out what you need to do and provide to complete the application. \n\nOverall, the app is very easy to use and the lending experience is really easy, especially with the bot it configured to auto invest within the parameters that you set up.\n\nThere is also a lot of opportunities to invest on every week and so far even after just being on the platform for a short month, it seems there’s ample investment options available. Yet to be proven on my personal level is the repayment rates. So we’ll see.\n\nThe one thing I wish for us easier understanding of the borrower. The fact sheet today is essentially a PDF doc and it’s quite hard to read from a mobile device. If the data is presented in a mobile friendly interface, it would be awesome. Perhaps the key data such as credit ratings, default probability, repayment schedules etc.\n\nOtherwise, it’s so far an ok experience for me this far. Time will tell if this investment platform provides a good return on my overall portfolio. ', 'Simple, intuitive and easy to use. \n\nEven when borrower fail to repay, it will make arrangement for a longer repayment schedules. \n\nPlease keep up the good work in supporting local SMEs', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['Great platform for lending. While all information relating to the creditworthiness of borrowers is available, they are in a report format so it is dry and time consuming to open and read all. A lot of deals recently so capital utilisation is good, no defaults as all non-payments are settled seamlessly by the team, allowing me to recover capital with late payment interest. Overall would recommend ', 'A great platform for diversified portfolio investment with controllable risk options. very user-friendly and easy to use.', 'The app is great and is very user-friendly. However, some suggestions: \n1) The deals could be more spread out. Some days there are many deals and some days there are few or no deals. Given that investors only have a limited amount of funds in their account, they may not be able to invest in all the deals on some days. \n\n2) There could clearer information on how much and which of the deals have paid. It can be difficult to track which deals have made payment. While we would see money entering the account, it’s difficult to tell how much came in and which deals have paid. Having some notifications would help. ', 'Amazing experience with them. Intuitive app with variable amounts of information easily accessible to its investors. Especially low default rate which is a bonus too. I see a very bright future for this platform', 'Easy to use but not many deals to be honest. Which makes it difficult for investors to see good growth in portfolio. ', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['Hi I personally prefer deal with high return and have shorter tenor such as 3 to 6 month, I prefer Funding Society offer more deals such as what your sister company modalku is doing shorter tenor with high return, I understand higher return mean higher risk, but I realised majority of deals are guaranteed return offer tiny percentage return. I just do not like that, please be proposition in the diversity of the deal offer because you have differents customer with differences preferences', 'Have only been using the App for about 3 months now. Waiting for my first repayment.\n\nThe App is very easy to use and very user friendly which is good.\n\nOne thing about the auto-investment bot is that it will randomise the amount put to investment instead of putting the maximum amount. Would be great if there is an option to input maximum amount. I always have to set timer and top up my investment amount once it is live. \n\nAnother improvement is that after I have invested, when my investments are in, would be good if I still can see the information that I see in the investment tab.', 'I like the prudent assessment of financial products and user to help balance loan risk and accumulate wealth for users. ', "Customer support is prompt and patience when I had issues during my account registration.\n\nWith it's recent introduction of Guranteed Returns investment, it is very useful for people whom would like to deal in low risk or to test waters/coup a feel. However do note that a minimum of $500 is required for the first deposited, before you can invest in anything.\n\nAdding on, it's auto investment features also helps make things easier without the need to always log in to app or account to perform an investment (unless you are in the queue for auto investment)", 'With the new Guaranteed Returns Investment scheme, I have an alternative to diversify my portfolio through Funding Societies with low risk. This platform has helped me tremendously in planning for my financial future and speeds up my plans for financial freedom. I have already recommended this platform to several of my friends and they have absolutely loved it!', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ['I had my first experience with P2P lending on the FundingSocieties platform, and it was a great learning journey - I have a better understanding of the risks and rewards that comes with lending to small businesses. FundingSocieties has a great app which is relatively simple to navigate, and it offers a variety of deals for its users. Depending on your risk profile, you can choose to invest in riskier products with higher chance of default, or "sure-win" products with low returns.', '[Debt Recovery]\n\n[User Friendliness]\n\n[Portfolio Diversification]\n\n[Customer Support]\n\nFunding Societies has the most number of deals available among all the platforms. Quantity of deal ranges from Good to Bad. Portfolio Diversification is easily achieved here due to the high quantity of deals. However, the debt recovery is an painful process. They need much improvement in terms of communication with investors and step up in their work in this aspect. ', 'The Good: Extremely intuitive mobile app. Highlights your exposure to a specific client across the number of deals (incl repaid/ outstanding since the start of time). Allows you to set up autobot investments. Dashboard is extremely clear on deals outstanding, repayment schedule, returns. A couple of things often overlooked for this amazing platform: (1) Amazing customer service. very responsive via live char or emails and (2) their website has a wealth of information on the product type they offer on the platform and formulas for how everything is calculated. \n\nThe Not so good: Deposits into your wallet in the account is NOT instant. this is a big no no for this digital age where banks offer real time API for apps to rely on. You actually have to upload a screenshot of your fund transfer and key in the exact amount you transferred. pretty mind blowing to me. ', 'User friendly app, easy to navigate, hope to see more investing opportunities in the near future as sometimes it seems to be quiet ', 'Returns are alright ard 10%ish, been at it for about 6 months, but there are limited investing opp, so either you set auto invest or you need to camp before each launch. ', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)'], ["I've been on Funding societies for exactly 1 month. This is investing, for the lazy or clueless investor. Just set up the bots, then forget about it. The platform will do the rest for you. Their self reported default rates are low, at 1.48%. Customer service is reasonably responsive.\n\nI have no clue how they derived the annualised performance that they put in huge letters on the home screen. Mine says 11.23%. I'm currently studying to be a CFA, and by my own estimates my annualised returns after platform fees is approx 7.5%, assuming i can reinvest everything i have today for a 10% return, and none of my investments defaults and everyone pays on time.\n\nUpdate: I signed up for an account on 11 Oct with a referral promo code, that requires me to make an investment by 15th Oct to be eligible for a $19 cashback. Funding Societies took until 14th Oct morning to finish the KYC, but there was nothing to invest in on both the 14th and 15th. I made my first investment on the 16th instead, and was disqualified from the referral program as a result, which was disappointing. When i raised the issue, customer service was sympathetic, but it looks like management wouldn't budge.", 'Default rate has been kept low so far, and I am monitoring the loans they provide. Not much deals to choose from', 'I have invested for 4 months, with a Projected return of 9.9%. I do have to say that Funding Society has a lower cost of entry compared to other P2P, with a higher fee.\nBut there has been more investment types recently, especially with the guaranteed return investment (with a lower interest). They really are listening to their users. ', 'Process of fund deposit is fast, and there is much more offering than most other platforms although the fee is slightly higher at 18%. Use referral code k0t77474 to get SGD20 discount when you deposit at least SGD500 before end of this year!', "Been using for a couple of months now. I find the auto-invest function pretty good and fuss-free. Returns are pretty high (currently at 11.56%). The app is quite nice but might get confusing to use at times. For eg, the income summary displays only the monthly summary instead of a year to date version. Can't really tell how the annualised performance is computed.", '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)', '.... (more)']]
