Flender to charge €12.50 per month to lenders

jt72

Got an email from Flender today. Was trying to get out before, but will definitely be doing so soon.

Flender - We are introducing regular lender fee

We want to thank you, our lending community, for supporting Irish SMEs through the Flender Platform since 2017.

Flender has lent €56m to Irish SMEs since inception and you, our lending community, have been an integral part of that. Together with our institutional on-lenders, you have provided SMEs with the competitive and timely funding they need to succeed whilst achieving attractive lender returns.

Up to now, Flender has absorbed all the costs of managing your loans as we did not want to pass these onto you or your SME borrower. It is not sustainable for all stakeholders to maintain this position. As such, we want to inform you that Flender is introducing a monthly platform fee of €12.50 to all of our lenders, starting this month.

We have assessed the fee structures across our competitors and we believe this represents fair value to all participants in the current cost environment. This fee will be deducted from your Flender account each month.

Should you have any questions or need assistance; our customer support team is ready to help. Thank you once again for being an essential part of our lending community.

Robust_Robot

I received the same email. Crazy pricing. Unfortunately, it takes time to withdraw your funds hence they will get you to pay this ridiculous charge.

dahughes

This is a horrible change. It might make sense for bigger users, but for me (I've about 2k invested) it basically means because the payments will be less than the fee that they will now keep all of my money. It's such a ripoff!

Why they couldn't have gone with a % instead so all users got a "fair" charge for their investment level..

igruizga

Hi guys, also seems we have been charged today and when trying to do a withdrawal of the rest of the balance does not allow us to do it as all the monthly withdrawals were already done by the company taking out our money. Sincerely, I believe it is not legal and we should join to take any class of legal action against the company. I only have a few remaining amounts to get back from borrowers and a big amount in "loss" which demonstrates the poor efficiency of this company, the reason of why I am the last 2 years without investing and taking the money out.

As Dahughes states, it would make sense to charge proportionally for any investment you do, but without investing, just recovering your money? It feels like a theft.

marsie99

I am from Holland and same here. 3000 Euro Account . The next 5 months they will take half of my interest. After that all. And at some point in one year or so they will take my principal money.

The last repayment is in 2028. So they will steal 53*12.50= 662.50 Euro. Isn' t this criminal in Ireland ??

And off course all the late payments and losses

cjf97

I received the same email. I currently have approx €1500 invested, with the last repayments not until 2027. This puts me in a similar position with around €600 lost to these charges. I cannot see how this is anything other than theft. We received no notice, charge was taken today and this also seems to mean that we cannot withdraw any funds for the rest of the month? Anyone looking at legal action against Flender, I would be interested in hearing more. Does anyone know whether Flender falls under the remit of Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman?

marsie99

Dont forget to switch OFF the Autoflend function. Otherwise the repayment time will even get longer. I also withdrew the rest of my cash

marsie99

Checked Google on NKK Finance,the owners of Flender. It says temporarily closed ?!?

connected1

This is what I see if I try and access the site.

And €12.50 a month is crazy!

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043964#Comment_121043964

Sorry but seems to be a you problem I'am afraid.

marsie99

To all readers here. On Reddit there is also a thread on this subject.

Search for : Flender to charge monthly fees on Reddit

notsocutehoor

On the face of it that would appear to be the beginning of the closing down process, it's unlikely that any new lenders will sign up, existing lenders will start to close down their accounts asap, so where is the money to lend going to come from. I know nothing about Flender though

jt72

Flender appear to have rolled back on this for the moment.

Over the past 24 hours we've received feedback from our valued Lending Community with regards to the €12.50/month platform fee. We have reviewed this feedback in detail and a number of common themes have emerged:

- Lenders were disappointed with the lack of notice given

- The fee created an issue with the withdrawal functionality

- Micro-lenders felt that the fee was disproportionate to their investment balance

In light of this feedback we have refunded the August platform fee if It was charged from your balance. It should be visible on your balance accounts immediately.

Flender will conduct a full review of our peer-to-peer offering over the next 10 working days. It is absolutely clear that in this rising cost environment, Flender can't continue to absorb the significant costs of running the platform without any charges to our Lending Community.

We understand that our futrue platform fee charges will need to be more equitable to our micro-lenders and will be communicated further in advance in line with our statutory obligations. We want to continue the vital support to our Irish SME borrowers whilst offering our Lending Community participation in future opportunities.

I didn't have a cash balance they could take the fee from, so I didn't get anything returned. Have seen others reporting the fee has come back to them.

notsocutehoor

Attempted damage limitation exercise, but damage alrady done, this just makes them look worse

Pieters

Same here. Small 3k investor. Also received both emails. Very unpleasantly surprised!

Though I was satisfied with investing via Flender so far I'm much afraid this unprofessional behavior will cause Flender to break down. I've initiated withdrawal of my available cash. Does anyone know how much time it takes between withdrawal on the website and crediting on the bank account?

phil_space

Same issue here. I have 3k outstanding and a couple of hundred euro available balance. When I try to withdraw this I get a message saying I have already completed my withdrawal request for the month, even though I haven't withdrawn money in over a year! Clearly withdrawals are being blocked. This is cowboy behaviour. Not sure what the best course of action is, so would be interested to see other Boards members' experience.

marsie99

Cash took 3 days to arrive in my bank account in Holland so that's normal.

Will wait now what they decide at Flender. If the fee is a small proportianate percentage that's OK ,otherwise I will try other investments.

cadelor

Has anyone had contact with them recently? I've tried going through the IDPal thing to verify to withdraw funds but a week later and I still have "ID Pal is verifying your application". No response to emails and cant get through to anyone on the phone.

Culchie

They seem to have closed altogether, no one answering phones or emails. No 'Marketplace' companies either so no operating business model it appears