Net wage in Estonia 1Q 2015 - 2Q 2016

The wage that employees get after taxes, to their bank accounts, in Estonia for full time work, for a month, by county.


 

Average net wage, euros	1Q 2015	2Q 2015	3Q 2015	4Q 2015	1Q 2016	2Q 2016
Harju maakond	908	959	938	983	982	1026
..Tallinn	922	979	954	1001	1000	1049
Hiiu maakond	665	696	710	726	682	762
Ida-Viru maakond	665	724	675	724	710	738
Jõgeva maakond	607	716	643	738	664	751
Järva maakond	682	745	693	746	715	793
Lääne maakond	690	738	721	752	769	819
Lääne-Viru maakond	686	755	720	747	717	782
Põlva maakond	610	682	629	672	659	732
Pärnu maakond	658	713	675	741	715	787
Rapla maakond	654	729	742	746	721	776
Saare maakond	637	694	676	714	683	745
Tartu maakond	800	870	815	879	863	960
Valga maakond	653	686	659	679	700	740
Viljandi maakond	718	755	738	782	756	826
Võru maakond	637	732	699	760	695	783

 

SOURCE: Statistikaamet

A sign of boom in Estonia, the average gross wage 1Q 2015 - 2Q 2016

I am posting here the monthly average gross wage for the last six quarters, by county, for any current and future expats who may be interested in such statistics and also for later reference for myself.

Recently there has been a rapid growth in the average gross wage in Estonia. From the average gross wage (bruto palk) there are some taxes already paid by the employers, but more taxes are deducted before workers get their salaries on hand. This is the number that employers usually talk about.

Note that the growth in the last 6 quarters has been around 12% for the capital Tallinn. Also note the quite large regional differences, for example Harju county (which includes the capital Tallinn), has 25% higher average wage than Võru county.

Average gross wage, by county, EUR	1Q 2015	2Q 2015	3Q 2015	4Q 2015	1Q 2016	2Q 2016
Harju maakond	1130	1194	1169	1226	1220	1279
..Tallinn	1149	1220	1190	1248	1244	1308
Hiiu maakond	823	855	879	899	842	937
Ida-Viru maakond	812	890	828	889	866	903
Jõgeva maakond	743	886	791	903	811	927
Järva maakond	835	919	856	918	882	980
Lääne maakond	849	922	890	929	945	1013
Lääne-Viru maakond	836	933	886	920	878	963
Põlva maakond	749	838	772	826	808	901
Pärnu maakond	809	879	826	915	877	972
Rapla maakond	800	894	906	911	882	959
Saare maakond	778	854	829	874	832	912
Tartu maakond	989	1076	1008	1086	1065	1191
Valga maakond	801	844	809	834	859	909
Viljandi maakond	886	929	903	968	930	1022
Võru maakond	785	906	860	938	856	965
SOURCE: Statistikaamet

P2P financing in Eastern Europe

Being from Eastern Europe I have found recently, that when searching for investment opportunities, I don't really need to look far (for ex, to international stock markets).

There are numerous peer-to-peer investing opportunities right here. Of course these investments are risky, like any others. However the good thing about them is the opportunity to invest with small amounts of money. Usually they offer possibilities to invest in loans starting from 10 €.

After doing some research, I have found the most interesting to be Mintos, Twino and Viventor, all being from Lativa. The first two I have already used and they seem to work well. What separates those peer-to-peer lenders is the BuyBack Guarantee. Essentially the investor is taking the risk that the loan provider may default. This is a much better position to be in, than say giving consumer loans to anonymous strangers. 

I find the best setup to be in Mintos. They have a secondary market, where it is possible to buy even smaller pieces of a loans. That means reinvesting is possible with only few euros, so even small sums of repaid money from the loans can be reinvested immediately.

In case a loan default occurs with the BuyBack Guarantee in place, the originator buys the loan up after some time (generally 30-60 days, different websites have different terms). The only inconvenience for the investor is then the additional waiting time. This is much better then having a defaulted loan and having to deal with the time and cost associated with the recovery of the loan. 

So until the loan providers do not default, the investment will work and risks are minimal, when compared to unsecured P2P lending. So hopefully the bust of these P2P lending sites is not happening in the near future. The small lenders behind the guarantees are usually getting a lot of cash from these loans (about 40-60% interest) from the customer and giving back about 10-12% interest to the investor. This means they should have ample cash flow to provide the guarantees. As long as they all don't default at the same time (possible, but should not happen often).

Risks of course are quite big, in case the website owner defaults, it will be really difficult to get some or any money back. However, as these websites are quite new and still growing, I am not concerned about the big systemic problems. These will come at a much later stage.

So this was a small overview of potential alternative P2P investments in Eastern Europe. I plan on covering this topic also in the future, so stay tuned.

First stock idea: Crestwood Equity Partners LP (CEQP)

This blog will be getting some stock analysis from now on. It will mainly include stocks that the author finds interesting, but may include also some economic and macro analysis.

First idea will be CEQP. Results came out yesterday and were quite nice. The stock jumped over 3%. So far so good. I will be following the stock in the next weeks t see how it trades.

Deeper analysis to follow in the next few days ...