Im vergangenen Jahr hatte uns weiterhin die Pandemie im Griff und beeinflusste den Geschäftsverlauf. Trotz der Umstände konnte erneut ein starkes Wachstum verzeichnet und das Team mit weiteren Spezialisten verstärkt werden.
Hocherfreulich war die Crowdinvesting-Kampagne mit unseren Kunden, die deren Vertrauen in Cashare auszeichnete. Mit dieser starken Basis starten wir mit voller Zuversicht ins neue Jahr. Ein weiteres herausforderndes Jahr steuert auf das Ende zu und konnte die Wünsche der Menschen nicht ganz erfüllen. Wir alle haben nach 2020 gehofft, dass wir die Pandemie bald hinter uns lassen können, vor allem auch dank dem neuen Impfstoff. Doch leider liess sich der Corona-Virus noch nicht aus unserem Leben drängen und auf Erholungsphasen folgten immer wieder strengere Massnahmen und die Sorge vor einem weiteren Lockdown.
Looking back to 2021
COVID-19 continues to leave its mark on Cashare as well. For example, some project plans have to wait in the drawer until they can finally be brought to implementation after the crisis. The SME financing segment has also not yet been able to recover much. We continue to sense a certain reluctance on the part of companies to invest in times of uncertainty. Liquidity loans are also being granted less, as many companies are still being provided with an emergency loan from the federal government or do not have the creditworthiness for another loan. These are cases where it is unclear to us how they will ever be able to repay the emergency loan and therefore, unfortunately, do not obtain sufficient creditworthiness from us. Nevertheless, once the pandemic is over, we expect to see increased pent-up demand from SMEs for financing, and we are ideally positioned to meet this demand.
Fortunately, we are also seeing positive developments. For example, overall demand for credit has increased compared with 2020. It is becoming apparent that people and companies are now increasingly able to come to terms with the crisis. In particular, the segment with mortgage-backed loans continues to record strong growth. Personal loans are also continuing to grow slightly, although not yet to the same extent as before the crisis. On the investor side, the investment emergency is still strongly felt and investing in a loan portfolio is an interesting alternative in the fixed income area. As a result, Cashare was able to further increase growth in 2021 compared to the previous year, growing at a respectable 50%, up from 45% in 2020, demonstrating once again that the broad range of loans, as well as the well-diversified investor side, are important pillars of Cashare's success. In addition, we have remained true to our strict and proven credit checks and do not subordinate everything to growth at any cost. As a fintech pioneer, we can draw on a good 14 years of experience and successfully meet the current challenges.
The growth at Cashare also means that we were able to further strengthen the team with specialists last year. With a focus on IT, we have expanded the team with another internal software architect, data specialist and business analyst. This reinforcement will significantly support us in future developments for the benefit of our customers. We have also strengthened our sales team on a selective basis, enabling us to serve and support our key accounts even better.
Crowdinvesting campaign
A special highlight was our crowdinvesting campaign in November. In this campaign, we exclusively offered our customers the opportunity to participate in Cashare via participation certificates for an amount as low as CHF 350. This was a great success with over 200 new participants. We are the only crowdlending platform that enables our customers to directly participate in the success and growth of Cashare. This is a matter of the heart for us, because ultimately we owe our success precisely to our customers. Cashare is the only major platform in Switzerland that remains independent and has no strategic investors with their own interests. On the contrary, this allows us to focus entirely on the interests of our customers, who are equally co-owners of Cashare. Not to mention, we have been honored by the trust of our customers as investors, because who knows Cashare and our offer better than they do. It is also a special pleasure that many investors from the very beginning have decided to invest in participation capital, which is a tribute to our continuous development and their customer satisfaction.
Outlook
With the strong and broad base of our investors, as well as a motivated team, we are positively looking forward to the new year with great joy. We can't wait to put our full effort into implementing our projects and further expanding our offering and customer friendliness. The first results will soon be visible in the new year and many more are to follow.
We wish you from the bottom of our hearts a happy new year with many happy moments.
Your Cashare Team
Michael Borter
