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The search of financing is one of the key issues in business. Bank requirements are becoming tougher, the rates are growing, refusals are received all the more often. Against the backdrop of all these processes, the business is constantly looking for alternative sources of financing. There exist the following types of p2p financing.

First of all, crowdfunding (loans issued by physical persons or legal entities to businesses) and crowdinvesting (financing by the sales of shares under a loan agreement). The Central Bank of the Russian Federation defines them as subtypes of crowdfunding, but their essence is slightly different.

People in crowdfunding invest in implementation of a specific project, getting non noncash remuneration in return, whereas crowdlending and crowdinvesting are all about earnings. Crowdlending is a form of financing when legal entities or physical persons invest in projects, but on a condition of a subsequent return.

Crowdfunding concerns business to a smaller extent: it involves free collection of funds for a specific project.

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Risks

The Central Bank of Russia speaks about the six main risks and problems:

1. The lack of confidence in the fact that a “virtual contractor” on the platform really exists or that the borrower did not use any third party data without the knowledge of the latter;
2. The lack of minimum requirements to scoring and the lack information on the measures against fraud taken by the platform; 3. The quality of project evaluation and verification of the package of documents are determined by the procedures and rules of each specific platform;
4. If a platform faces technical problems or suddenly shuts down at the initiative of the owners, it is probable that  investors and borrowers are also going to have problems;
5. There are no certain rules for the return of funds in case the project has not collected the required amount for launch;
6. There is a possibility of using fraudulent schemes.

The platforms are aware of the risks and take measures to ensure the safety of customers. According to the internal statistics data, the work on the selection of projects helps to minimize risks. Nowadays, crowdfunding in Russia is not completely regulated by law, but the bill is being developed and is likely to be adopted this year.

The goal of regulation is developing the crowdfunding market as a funding source for micro, small and medium-sized businesses, discouraging unfair practices and protecting investors' interests.