NSR Invest: A New Way To Invest In Peer-to-Peer Loans

Since 2009, I’ve invested about 1 percent of my portfolio in peer-to-peer loans through Lending Club. To my delight, my Lending Club investments have returned a net annual average of 7.11 percent (that’s after accounting for defaults).

Investing in Lending Club or Prosper involves making unsecured personal loans, sometimes to borrowers who can’t get a bank loan. It’s risky and not for everybody. If you invest, you can reduce downside by spreading your money over hundreds of individual notes. The typical Lending Club portfolio, for example, is comprised of myriad $25 investments.

And therein lies a drawback to peer-to-peer investing: Your performance depends on the notes you hold, and picking them takes time. Not only that, but unless you have a lot of data at your disposal, “note picking” is unlikely to improve your returns. (I quickly gave up on hand-picking Lending Club notes and began automatically investing in bundles of notes that met my pre-selected criteria.

A company called NSR Invest aims to change that.

What is NSR Invest?

NSR Invest is a Registered Investment Advisor specializing in helping investors maximize returns from peer-to-peer loans. Just as an investment advisor will manage a client’s stock portfolio for an annual fee, NSR Invest does the same with marketplace loan portfolios.

(Important note: Money Under 30 has partnered with NSR Invest, meaning we may be compensated for referring readers who ultimately open an account. If you choose to support our free content in this way, thanks!)

For a small annual fee, investors get a fully-managed account that invests in loans from LendingClub, Prosper, and FundingCircle. Put your money in, and NSR Invest does the rest.

Why choose NSR Invest?

In my experience, there are two types of people who hire investment advisors to fully manage their portfolios:

Investors who fully admit they don’t know anything (and don’t want to know anything) about investing. They want somebody to handle their money for them, end of story.

Investors who see the value in paying a professional to assist with their investment strategy and to help them avoid making emotional decisions about money.

NSR Invest will be attractive to either investors who see promise in marketplace loans but don’t want to take extensive time to learn how to build a peer-to-peer portfolio or to investors who are already involved in marketplace lending but want to reach for higher returns.

If you’re looking to further diversify your investments, you might also consider opening an investing account with Wealthfront. This all-in-one money management app allows investors to build their own portfolio from scratch with a collection of expertly vetted ETFs and invest in specific categories like socially responsible investing (SRI), technology ETFs, and healthcare ETFs.

What does NSR offer?

NSR clients have access to propriety credit strategies derived from analyzing over $100 million of loans. NSR also offers institutional-grade trading technology and visibility into all of your loans, regardless of which platform (LendingClub or Prosper) they’re on.

NSR guides clients through account setup and takes care of choosing your loans, managing risk and periodical rebalancing.

NSR Invest costs and requirements

NSR Invest charges a 0.60 percent annual fee and has a $10,000 minimum investment. The fee works out to $60 per $10,000 invested. You can choose from three different fully-managed accounts:

• Conservative: 5 percent target net return
• Balanced: 7 percent target net return
• Assertive: 10 percent target net return

Finally, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) considers peer-to-peer loans to be a speculative investment and requires that investors meet certain suitability requirements. Put simply, don’t invest in peer-to-peer loans if you can’t afford to lose money.

Where to learn more

Visit NSR Invest to learn more about full-managed peer-to-peer investment accounts or open an account.

Lending Club Disclaimer: