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Tudor Darie. Fagura expands its community

An interview with Tudor Darie, CEO and founder of Fagura.

#THE INTERVIEW

Hello, Tudor. A few years ago, as an accomplished media businessman, you took the unexpected step of founding and leading the FinTech project Fagura. Recently, you announced that you sold your shares in Agora and focused entirely on the Fagura business. How did this turnaround come about?

I set up Fagura with no experience in finance, driven by the difficulties I was having when I had to look for development loans. Unexpectedly, my lack of experience turned out to be an advantage. I was able to see the problem and the solution from a different angle than banks or microfinance institutions. The path the project has followed over the years has confirmed the correctness of the approach. Today, Fagura has reached the point where I realized it was time to focus on this business exclusively.

Define Fagura in a nutshell...

Fagura will eventually become an online bank, where people will be able to manage their entire financial lives online. Today we offer an investment platform based on p2p lending technology, where people looking for loans meet at a lower rate than the financial market, with investors interested in more stable returns than bank deposits.

You and I talk on messenger. You're not in Chisinau, you're in Bucharest. Has Fagura launched on the Romanian market?

Yes, it has. We currently work for two countries, we have two offices, in Chisinau and Bucharest. The main office is in Chisinau. Romania is our bridge to European countries and European business. However, even now, anyone from any country can invest in Fagura. Even from France, even from Spain. We currently have investors from over 34 countries.

Why are we doing this interview? The initiative was yours. I accepted with great pleasure because I've known you for a long time and I know how you weigh your moves. So what is the reason?

I want to expand the Fagura community.

Do you want to increase the number of debtors on the platform or the number of investors?

I made no mistake about the Fagura community. In finance, trust is the main currency. We are consistently building a community around Fagura. You can think of it as the community of a future digital bank. By participating in our platform, investors benefit by helping other people. However, we have seen the "roles" reversed several times. The borrower, after paying off the loan, stays on the platform and invests money in it. On the other hand, investors can apply for a loan themselves. This is the Fagura community.

However, to become a member of a community, you must either decide whether you need a loan or decide to invest money in the platform. Let's talk about the logic of lending and investing in Fagura.

Please.

Let's start with investors. They are more difficult to attract, as they need above-market returns and low risk. What does Fagura offer investors?

In two and a half years, investment returns have fluctuated between 10% and 17% per year. No one has lost money in that time. Although Fagura is a p2p platform, we only connect investors and lenders, but our smart scoring methodologies ensure a high loan yield. Granted, you won't get an annual return of 10% or more on euro deposits anywhere today.

I see. From what amount can you invest in Fagura to try the platform and understand how it works?

25 euros.

A very democratic amount. How many investors does Fagura have now?

About 2,000 people have registered. Currently about 560 investors have active accounts. Many investors are programmers, a category of people with good incomes who know how to manage their money competently.

A good time to ask: how much money is the platform operating with today?

960,000 euros. Consider that a million euros.

Let's move on to debtors. Is there a minimum loan amount?

Yes. We offer loans from €1,000 to €5,000 for up to three years, with interest paid monthly. This amount will increase in the future.

What is the interest rate?

This depends on several factors. Behind every loan application is an elaborate and sophisticated machine learning scoring procedure. Within seconds, the system analyses the borrower's credit history, stated income and a range of other factors and makes an offer. Loan rates can range from 12 to 30 percent a year.

Do I have to come to your office to get a loan?

Not really. The whole process is done online. You just need to take a selfie with an ID.

So you lend both in Moldova and Romania?

In Romania we are still in the process of licensing. It will take some time. There are many procedures for which it is difficult to predict more precisely the timing.

What happens if the borrower has not repaid the loan? Do you hand over debts to a collection company?

First of all, our scoring algorithm works with an efficiency of 96-97%, i.e. 96-97 people out of one hundred repay their loans on time. Foremost, our lawyer will contact 3-4 people who do not pay on time, we will discuss the reasons for non-payment and debt restructuring is possible. And only if this procedure does not help, we turn to the collection companies.

What is Fagura's profit?

Two percent of the investors' income. We are therefore particularly interested in their stability and growth. You might think that our commodity is money, but in fact our "commodity" is trust. A FinTech business is a business based on trust. That's why we were talking about strengthening the Fagura community. The first investors joined the Fagura platform because they knew me personally. Later on, those who trusted the opinion of the first investors followed and so the circle of people who trust Fagura gradually grew.

I think we've covered the most important aspects, haven't we?

I would add one more detail. We are open to increasing Fagura's capital. There is an accessible procedure to become a co-owner of the platform. More than 270 people have recently become co-owners. Very interesting personalities have joined - international bank executives, financial experts. Two of them became members of our team - Christian Pașa, who was part of the Bloomberg team, and Damian Nedelea, who strengthened our IT department.

Tudor, I want to ask you as a former bank employee turned journalist: are you enjoying the transition from journalism to FinTech business?

Maybe one day I'll go back to media. But right now, Fagura is the idea I wake up and go to bed with. We have a busy agenda before we become a community digital bank.

Photo: VIP Magazine

Pavel Zingan

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