An eventful year with many challenges has come to an end. Even in turbulent times, we are pleased to look back on special milestones and continue to look to the future with optimism. We pick up on some highlights from the past year and review them with you.
The market
After a successful crowdinvesting campaign and a successful capital increase together with existing existing shareholders, we were able to start the new year stronger. At the beginning of the year, the big question was still how long the virus would keep the company in suspense. Despite all the adversity caused by the coronavirus in 2020 and 2021, we were able to maintain our strong growth. While SME loans tended towards zero during this period, as expected, due to the emergency loans from the federal government, the real estate financing segment in particular was very successful.
Due to the war in Ukraine, the year 2022 then developed quite differently. Instead of the hoped-for economic recovery after the lockdowns, the year was soon characterized by inflation, rising interest rates and supply chain disruptions, which prevented the hoped-for normalization. Strong uncertainties continued to accompany us, investors and borrowers, and demanded a lot from us.
Greater restraint became apparent, particularly on the part of investors. Sharply falling stock markets and declining bond markets, as well as the slump in digital assets and weakly developing precious metal prices, unsettled investors and prompted them to exercise restraint. Although our default rates remained stable, this did not leave our platform unscathed. To make matters worse, in the case of some real estate loans, the disrupted supply chains meant that projects could not be completed as planned and the repayment of the loans was delayed. Refinancing of larger loans became more difficult due to the restraint, resulting in further delays.... Despite all this, the volume of loans brokered remained stable. In this further year of crisis, crowdlending proved to be a stable diversification in any investment strategy, especially compared to traditional investments. We were able to demonstrate the strength of the balanced cashare loan portfolio with the punctual repayment of our 3-year bond.
While the volume of real estate loans declined, we saw an increase in demand for SME loans from around mid-2022. This pleasing development shows that the days of corona loans are a thing of the past and that this segment is returning to normal. It is also particularly nice for our investors that this means that investment opportunities are once again spreading across many sectors and interesting SMEs.
The private segment has also stabilized. Education loans to Bénédict students continue to be very popular and we are pleased to have gained another partner for education financing in the form of a foreign university in Switzerland. These developments should continue for the new year, while we expect a recovery in the real estate sector with normalizing supply chains as well as strengthened investor confidence. Especially in times of such high market turbulence, loans on our platform have proven to be very stable investment opportunities.
Corporate development
In the past year, we have responded to market conditions by continuously reviewing and, where necessary, adapting our strategies. This also led to some adjustments in the organization, systems and team. Separations of some employees have allowed us to refresh the organization. At the end of the year, we are pleased to report that we have succeeded in doing so. The mood and motivation in the team are very good and we are all looking forward to going full throttle in the new year. We would also like to make special mention of our two new members on the Advisory Board, who will be providing us with additional support on various topics in the future. We have already reported about them in the blog.
We have introduced new technologies that will greatly support us in the future, especially in sales and marketing. Developments in the area of data science and various improvements in the processes of Operations will also enable us to start 2023 on a new level. We are very pleased with the positive feedback from our users, especially for our customer support. This will allow us to celebrate Cashare's already 15th birthday next January with full strength. Innovations are also planned in the system and first small optimizations are already visible in the User Portal.
We will continue to give this expansion a high priority in the new year. The organically grown system over all the years with the high complexity, unfortunately does not allow a quick "big bang", but evolutionary further developments. Here we have to ask our users for some patience. But we can assure that all inputs will be taken into account and we are working on the issues with high focus.
Even though the past year was very challenging and not everything went as originally planned, we are very confident to be on a good track. Despite market turbulence, thanks to our agility as well as many years of experience as a fintech pioneer, we were able to use the time to start the new year strengthened and full of drive. With this in mind, we would like to express our sincere thanks for your trust and the good cooperation.
We wish you good luck, health and success for the new year!
Your CEO Michael Borter
