Ever wondered who all these people gathering on the MYC4 platform really are? What do we have in common and in which ways are we different? I’d like to give you a peak into our great family of investors to give you a little more information about who we are – and who you are.
Most investors come from Denmark, nearly 3 out of 4, which (I think) is mainly a result of the media coverage in Danish television. But many other nationalities show great interest in the concept too. The following countries in the top5 are The Netherlands, Sweden, The UK and Germany – so go spread the word fellows! The average age of an investor is 40 years old, but most investors are spread around the interval of 20-70 years of age, so don’t feel like you don’t fit in.
So how many are we? Well, if we measure how many user-creations have been made since the launch, and subtract those figures from those that gave up before they even got started (poor guys, must have been too complicated), we have a total of nearly 14,000 investors who have funded at least one loan. And out of these, 30 % of you investors funded more than 20 loans – way to go!
Out of a total of nearly 410,000 successful bids on the platform since the beginning, 65 % have been manual bids, and the rest, obviously, autobids. So it seems we still prefer human choice over computer-algorithms – the personal intuition matters.
How much do we bid? The average amount per bid peaked in the middle of ’08 at nearly €80, and has then been falling ever since. The average bidding amount for 2011 is now consolidated at €20 with a median at €5.
Note that the total successful bidding amount per quarter has been nearly constant for the last two years, even though the average bidding amount has fallen from around €35 to €20 in the same period. This shows that loans are being funded by more bids of smaller amounts, rather than fewer bids of higher amounts, and that’s positive for the investor’s risk diversification – smart guys.
How much do we want in interest? The average interest on bids in 2011 is 13.90 % with a median at 13.75 %. The average interest has varied over time, also due to the currency risk, but after what can be considered the introductory year of ’07, it has consolidated around 12-14 %.
How active are we? In the first three quarters of 2011 there were little over 6,000 active investors on the platform. These investors made nearly 89,000 successful bids. That means that each active investor made an average of nearly 5 successful bids per quarter in 2011.
Another interesting figure is how many loans each investor ‘made happen’ (successful bids per total users). Calculating this, for the time since the beginning, with nearly 19,000 created users on the platform and a total of nearly 410,000 successful bids, this equals an average of nearly 22 loans ‘supported’ by each user – including inactive users, though not taking into account if some investors support the same loan with more than one successful bid.
The last indicator from me today, is the average invested amount per active investor (note that this is different from the average bidding amount). Over the last three quarters (2011) the ≈6,000 active investors have each invested an average of close to €300, in other words, approx. €100 per investor per quarter. Please note that this amount includes re-loaned funds.
All these statistics are just to give you all a tiny idea of how we have been using the platform until now. You can have these figures in mind when you invest in the future.
Finally I’d like to tell you a little bit about who I am – who is this strange new blogger?! I’m currently analysing internal statistics for MYC4 at their office in Copenhagen once a week as a volunteer, using data that Githa Kurdahl extracts from the internal database. When I’m not here, I work on my bachelor degree in business administration from Roskilde University (RU) focusing on theorizing what can actually be defined as a ‘social entrepreneurship’. I’m 23 years of age, and I consider myself to be a ‘social investor’. When I’m finished with my bachelor project, my plan is to study a master degree in ‘social entrepreneurship’. I hope to be at your service on the blog in the future.
So what’s the purpose of this post? The statistics above are only showing general demographics and simple data that we (think we) know about you so far. But what we really want, is to get an insight of what you would like to know more about as an investor. So please comment any suggestions on further statistic analysis, and I’ll see what I can do about it. I’ll gladly do quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews in the future, to let you know much more about everything there is to know in relation to MYC4. Cheers!
Tim Vang
Ole Vestergaard
Githa Kurdahl
Titus Kuria
Rasmus Hansen
Louise Ravn Christiansen
Markus Sundell
Once upon a time in the history of MyC4 their were some active investors digging through the numbers. They made a lot of interesting data available on MyC4Watch.com (a non existent domain on the moment as the API pilot in 2009/2010 didn’t turn out to be very succesfull).
It included statistics as top performing investors, average return on investment for investors. The development over time of the ratio of defaulted versus disbursed loans in total, per country and for each provider. Amount disbursed per provider over time.
And for the individual investors it offered tools to see what amounts you had invested per country or per provider. It also predicted things like cashflow based on the repayment schemes on the site.
All very interesting statistics for risk assessment and portfolio performance analytics.
I would love to have some of those tools back, or at least see how these ratios develop for each provider. For example: I’m missing loans from some providers, like Growth Africa. How are Johnni and his people doing? They used to be very communicative, but is very silent from their and MyC4′s site for quite some time…
Hi Krispen,
Thanks for the notes and well wishes! We do intend to continue our flow of communication, but with a slightly changed focus (having exited the lending business) and via our own website: http://www.growthafrica.com from early 2012.
Hope to see you there,
Johnni
Dear Rasmus,
I would like you to look into a fishy corners of MyC4, namely why there is consistenly currency exchange losses. I have received between 50 – 100 statements on my invetsments, but never seen anything but losses. Currency rates goes up and down, so my question is if it is a “smart” way for the MyC4 management to milk the investors?
re other statistics – I would like to see how bids build up over time: amounts, percentages of loan and rates bid
re currency exchange – Sometimes they fluctuate plus (though mainly minus), I have tried comparing the exchange rates achieved by the administrators against the daily XE rates and there is only a broad correlation with what our repayments are converted at. I would be happier if there was some easily referenceable statistic confirming that “good” rates were being sought.
To those of you who comment on currency fluctuations and the currency losses you have incurred. I have done a quick analysis myself based on the loans I have provided, and I see no reason to question the results presented by myc4 in the profit and loss statement.
I have (or have had) loans supporting business in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda and I have been active since December 2010, so for all practical purposes that is one year.
When I look at the historical exchange rates on a site such as Oanda.com comparing EUR to the currencies of the above countries, I see that during 2011 the EUR strengthened almost continuously compared to 4 of the five currencies between 4.3% (RWF) and 35.9% (KES) from the beginning of January until mid-October 2011. From then on the EUR has fallen continuously and the full year EUR gain was between 0.5% (RWF) and 9.3% (GHS).
Since loans are repaid monthly, it is evident, that considerable currency losses have been incurred during most of the year. However, if the current trend continues (the EUR is weakening, and no wonder considering the mess we are in) it looks like 2012 could provide us with currency gains. And indeed, if I look at my personal P/L statement for 2012 only, I have at this point currency gains on three out of four remaining currencies, and an overall net currency gain.
In the year I have participated, I have earned 7.8% interest after tax and currency based on my uploaded amount. I have furthermore had 8.0% loss on currency. My portfolio consists of 25 loans with an average interest rate of 13.3% and none of the loans have defaulted at this point in time.
[...] Do you consider industry when choosing who you lend to? And do you think that e.g. the default risk is the same on every industry? Allow me to add another dimension to your lending decisions and give you a peek into some more statistics. [...]