"Alpha Stream" from "Alfa Bank": review, reviews. Money for business development

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

A new type of credit services has already conquered a significant part of the financial sector in Western markets. He took root in America, many European countries, and in our country is gaining momentum.

One of the largest banks in the country picked up on this idea, naming the new project "Alpha Potok" (by the beginning of this year it was renamed "Potok. Digital"), and began to act as a loan intermediary between individuals and businesses.

Concept

The difference from similar services of other financial and credit organizations lies in the fact that ordinary citizens are invited to make investments in small businesses. For it is unprofitable for banks to lend to small firms: with high costs, there is very little profit. The project was launched in January last year. While it is being debugged, only existing customers can use Alfa Potok. A potential lender is recommended several packages from a number of companies united bycertain principle. For example, “The 30 most profitable…” or “The most profitable production in a certain region”, etc.

You can invest at least 10,000 rubles for six months. The bank organizes the payment of interest on a weekly basis in equal installments to a personal bank account. That is, the first income pleases the investor already on the eighth day.

Who does not risk…

Be sure to warn each creditor of the risks associated with this case and of the responsibility that lies solely with the investor. The Alpha Stream intermediary provides only some protective measures. For example, investments in various companies provide a guarantee of obtaining at least a minimum profit, because all firms cannot go bankrupt at once. In addition, when forming packages, the bank selects organizations that are reliable in terms of activity and financial solvency. For this, the Supremum technology has been developed. All evaluations are conducted online. And it relies not on collateral (which, by the way, successful companies in the service trade or IT sector do not have), but on the profile of management, business activity and the final product.

What is the benefit for the investor

Alpha Potok is a kind of private investment club. Within its framework, the bank, as it were, is a conductor between the borrower and the lender. The latter invests personal funds in a small business at a rate of 30% per annum and receives weekly payments. Information about the reliability and solvency of a company is provided by a financial and credit institution. The lender can choose a "Package" of companies anddistribute your investments among several business representatives (most often they do this to reduce possible risks) or send the entire amount to one company.

Here you need to take into account that the bank does not give any guarantees. He only acts as a regulator between the two parties to the transaction, initiating the legal field, and provides the loan with an official status. Although Alfa Potok (both positive and negative reviews confirm this) and provides information only about the most promising and stable companies, the choice in any case remains with the investor.

What is the project interesting for small businesses and entrepreneurs

Judging by the reviews, lending money for business development, the borrower is not in a very advantageous position. The interest from Alfa Potok is quite significant, however, financing passes through the online platform instantly and without much delay. Money reaches the company within two working days, but already at 45% per annum.

Credit assessment is performed by the bank based on the created profile of the management, the product created by the company and business activity. Pledge and property are not considered.

There are not so many advantages of the platform, perhaps only one can be singled out - “Early repayment”. It allows you to save on the payment of barbaric interest.

How Alpha Stream works

Both parties to the transaction must be active clients of the financial and credit organization and registered on the bank's website. They, in the shares prescribed in the agreement, pay for the package of services andrequired fees.

The conditions offered are as follows:

• Investments are possible within 10,000–500,000 rubles.
• Ability to study the profile of each credited company on the official website of the service (it is a pity that only after the distribution of money).
• Declared yield - up to 30% per annum.
• Payments are made online and weekly.

The bank takes a third of the borrower's interest rate for its services. That is, the loan is issued at 45% per annum, the investor receives his thirty, and the intermediary - 15%. The whole scheme is quite transparent and does not cause any particular difficulties when using its services.

To apply, a company must be active for at least a year. The loan can be issued for one day, but not more than six months. A paper package of documents is not required, as well as a security deposit.

High credit rating in this system makes it possible to get the next loan on more favorable terms (large amounts at low interest rates and a long term), because the company has proven its solvency and reliability. But the credit rating earned in Potok does not apply to other financial institutions.

Direct Lending

The system works as follows. As soon as the amount required for a particular company is collected, it is automatically transferred by the service to its account from the investors' accounts. The return is in reverse order.

If the required amount of money is not collected within two weeks,the loan is not issued and the application is cancelled. It needs to be resubmitted.

The agreement (individual offer) is concluded online with each creditor separately, since there may be more than a dozen of them. The details of the parties are automatically entered into each agreement, so the signing procedure takes place, as they say, in two clicks.

Acceptance (acceptance) by the creditor of the offer (offer) is the debiting of money from his account and crediting them to the company's account.

Flow Speed

The minimum term for obtaining a loan is five days: it takes two days to verify the application (if all documents from the company are provided promptly), another two days a package of companies is published and one day the required amount is collected from investors. But on average, these operations are completed in seven business days: applications are checked for five days, contracts are formed and signed, and money is collected for a couple of days.

Maximum 34 days. Most often, delays occur at the stage of signing loan agreements: not all 30 organizations of the package respond quickly to the proposed conditions. Therefore, the service allocates 20 days for this, and 14 days for collecting the ordered amount. To speed up the process, after sending notifications of loan approval, Alfa Potok specialists offer assistance by phone to speed up the process.

Payouts

Alfa Potok writes off the pre-calculated payment from the borrower's account in favor of the investor within a certain period of time. The basis for calculating interest is the amount of the loan, interest is added daily. Paymentsrun automatically. It is only important to ensure that the required amount is on the account on the day of withdrawal.

The commission assigned to Potok may decrease if the debt is repaid early (no pen alties are provided for this).

Responsibility of the borrower

If a small business representative makes a delay, the service independently sends companies information about the debt and the amounts required to be returned with interest and pen alties. Both those and others are calculated according to the individual conditions that are prescribed in each specific agreement. But they are levied on the amount of the principal debt, and on overdue interest. A pen alty is paid with the next payment.

In case of non-payment within the specified period, the right to claim the debt is transferred to a collection agency.

Partnership

Today Potok left the bank. Now it is absolutely clear that this is not a banking service, but an innovative investment product. Alfa-Bank minimized its participation in Potok before providing data for the scoring system. But the service uses bank technologies, evaluating investment policy and business.

Legally Potok. Digital LLC is part of Alfa Group and affiliated with Alfa Bank.

Since this service is an independent technology company, it works not only with borrowers, but with partners, and all operations are performed quickly and on the most flexible terms. So, for example, "Alpha-flow" forattracted client pays (how much, depends on each specific case) commission. New customers are registered using a special promotional code issued by the inviting party.

Or, for example, using this platform, it is possible to lend to anyone (dealers, partners, customers, etc.). You can give loans with an extra charge or with specially prescribed conditions, etc.

Tax liabilities

All are carried out in accordance with the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. Taxes are withheld from the investor's income. However, the company (officially - the tax agent) is engaged in their translation. Flow made the process as simple as possible. The amounts of tax payments are calculated automatically and transferred online to the bank. He, in turn, generates payment orders, writes off the indicated amounts and transfers them to the tax office. That is, everything goes without human participation.

Opinions vary

The review of the platform presented by Alfa-Bank clearly makes it clear that competition in the business-to-business (b2b) sector is starting a new round. And this organization fills a free niche. But as experts say, Alfa Potok guarantees a stable profit only for itself. Both parties to a transaction are often at considerable risk. For an investor, such an investment of money is far from safe, and for a borrower, it is another package of harsh and unfavorable conditions that can hardly be called suitable in our economy.

Investors doubt

On thematic sites you can find positive reviews aboutservice. The lender, for example, lent money for business development in the amount of 10,000 rubles. During their turnover, they managed to earn a little more than 640 rubles (net, that is, without tax). As a percentage, it will be almost 13% per annum. As the investor writes, much more was expected, of course (judging by the advertising of this banking product). But profits continue to rise. For some borrowers, having overdue payments, continue to pay, but with pen alties. It turns out that such an investment is still more profitable than, for example, opening a deposit.

There are other opinions. In particular, a profit of only 9.4% is described, and then only because there are backlogs in repaying the loan. The haste with which the principal debt on the Alfa Potok loan is paid is very frustrating (!) for investors: the profitability is significantly reduced.

Here are considerations that seem to be more real. Invested 10,000 rubles (100%). 10,354 rubles returned, which is 103.54%, that is, the yield was just over 7%. “Thank you,” the investor writes, “which is not a minus…”

Post scriptum

Summing up, we can say this: Alfa-Potok from Alfa-Bank is currently the optimal model of automatic peer-to-peer lending (“P2P loan”). Small businesses are very doubtful about the benefits of the proposed conditions, but in fact the potential of this offer is huge.

There are also several analogues of the Alpha Stream. The most famous of them are Fingooroo and Vdolg.ru services, and WebMoney is unofficially recognized as reliable. There are others, but they have not yet been tested and judge their workpretty hard.