Saw this on Twitter today: the Fairphone | It’s time to expand our impact campaign at oneplanetcrowd. Still 28 days to go to enter funding via convertible loans.
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Yes, and it was labelled “Shhhh. Please don’t share!” 
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The discount code gives 30€ on a FP2.
Edit: I see this crowdfunding campaing only has started today? It already has raised 242.801 €. 
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It was also posted on Reddit 11 hours ago
… and also arrived by mail…
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Usually I´m not into sharing anything of such kind as most things how I see it eats up the money and run into a completely wrong direction as expected wasting the investment.
A year ago I wouldn´t had bothered to invest the least amount just to see how things goes. But now I have different priorities.
In the past I have backed different campaigns for some interesting pledges I´m very satisfied with. I also pre-ordered FP2 back then.
But here the outcome is unknown and the run seems to be long (4-8 years).
Anyway I believe and hope they again will reach their goal. As it looks they are on a good way so far.
This proves there are more people out there interested in FP actions and future plans wanting to give financial support as well. Maybe it´s the actual company size and marked influence keeping others off from investing.
I think a steady growth is a better strategy than going at full risk. This shows a sense of responsibility by the management which is not very common these days anymore.
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I wonder how this would work for someone in the UK. Would I need a bank account in euros to receive loan interest? Would currency conversion fees eat all of the returns?
Could fintech help out? Haven’t read up properly on these companies, but you might want to look into Monzo or Revolut for low-fee multi-currency services
The UK is part of SEPA, so it is possible to send Euros to the UK as a normal SEPA payment. I would expect most UK banks to accept such payments - but they may charge commission or other fees!
An account at Transferwise or Revolut is probably what you’re looking for indeed, then you pay almost no banking fees.
I don’t expect problems with Brexit, given there are already six other non-EU countries part of SEPA, and I’m sure the banks in the City will be upset when anyone suggests to leave it.
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High street banks (/building society) charge consumers between £9 and £25 per (non-sterling) SEPA transaction. In addition they also tend to take a 4% commission through unfavourable exchange rates.
Aside: domestic transfers in the UK don’t go through SEPA, but through their own-developed systems. I don’t believe UK banks have any substantial interest in keeping SEPA transfer options for consumer banking products. They’d happily revert to a less integrated and more expensive option and pass on the cost to their customers, international transfers make up just a tiny little corner of their consumer business anyway. For businesses they’re likely to open EU-based subsidiaries to easily cheat their way into SEPA.
Does anybody know how convertible loans are taxed in Germany (and how much effort they create)?
342.440 € so far. 
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Anybody considering to take part in this should really read the (entire) investment sheet. Apart from containing important information about the risks of such an investment, it has some clues regarding the next Fairphone:
- Revenue in 2018 is expected to be about the same as in 2017 but is forecast to quadruple(!) in 2019. Assuming that sales of the FP2 most certainly won’t suddenly skyrocket, this means that the “FP3” launches in 2019. And it has to be much more successful than the FP2 to ensure the continuity of Fairphone.
- Quote: “Future models of the Fairphone may exhibit similar technical issues that occurred with the Fairphone 2. Fairphone will substantially reduce this risk by decreasing the complexity of its next phone and by switching to a more reliable and more reputable manufacturer.”
The “more reputable manufacturer” is later identified as having produced phones for Sony. So the “FP3” won’t be manufactured by Hi-P anymore, but by a big player. And it might be more of an entry-level phone or they might even give up on the modularity (very speculative).
Of course this is just my interpretation and not meant as advise for or against such an investment!
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Fairphone should go for volume IMO (and it seems they are). With more volume, the price can go down. Its kind of a chicken/egg problem. I hope they succeed, even if sacrifices are being made.
Though the sacrifices might make other phones more attractive, Fairphone is trying to please a lot of markets/interests at the same time with the FP2. Instead of trying to be a swiss army knife its better to be very good at a few things, with alternatively differentiate with different products.
It is tough to compete in the current market of budget phones. You can get very good phones these days in the 200 EUR segment. That’s regular market. China market is even cheaper, especially if you manage to escape the import tax roulette. (Warranty is worse though.) But if you don’t want an elitist community for the rich, the price has to go down.
My 2 ct,
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According to Kapitalanlagen-ABC / Wandelanleihen (convertible bonds, Wandelschuldverschreibung, Wandelobligation) | Finance Office Professional | Finance | Haufe the standard “Abgeltungssteuer” applies.
About the effort I don’t have a clue, though 
Hi Sam,
From what my team team tells me, it should be possible to pay the investment from a British Pound bank account in Euros; the interest payment will also be transferred in Euros, and subsequently converted to British Pounds. There is no need to use a euro bank account for this purpose. However transaction costs may be charged by the bank and exchange rates could impact the interest returns.
Thanks a lot for the useful link. So maybe you just have to put your returns into the right field of the KAP form of the tax declaration. But with the German tax system you can never be sure that’s all.