Hive5 is yet another new P2P platform on the market that promotes a return of up to 14.5%.
But beware: A closer look at the Croatian-based platform shows that the company’s entanglements and business practices should be evaluated very critically. The exact risks involved and what investors should consider before investing on the platform will be assessed in this Hive5 review.
All the information that are covered in this Hive5 review are based on my own personal research. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on this or any other platform. More information can be found in the Disclaimer.
Further analyses of other platforms can be found on my P2P Platform Review page.
Hive5 Overview
Before we get started, here is a quick summary with the most important information about Hive5.
| Founded / Started: | May 2022 / September 2022 |
| Legal Name: | Hive5 marketplace d.o.o. (LINK) |
| Headquarter: | Zagreb, Croatia |
| Regulated: | No |
| CEO: | Ričardas Vandzinskas (January 2022) |
| Promoted Return: | Up to 14% |
| Primary Loan Type: | Consumer Loans |
| Collateral: | Buyback Guarantee |
About Hive5
Hive5 is a Croatian-based P2P marketplace with Lithuanian roots, where investors can invest in both consumer and business loans, while earning a return of up to 14.5%.
The platform was founded in May 2022 by the Lithuanian parent company UAB Hive Finance. The platform is therefore still young and new to the market.
Ownership
Who owns Hive5? The Croatian-based Hive5 P2P platform belongs to the Lithuanian company Hive Finance. This holding company is owned by two shareholders.
Andrius Rupšys, successful founder of the GPS company Ruptela, owns 65% of the company shares. The other 35% is held by Ričardas Vandzinskas. Both shareholders also own the majority shares in Hive5 as well as the Polish lender Ekspres Pozyczka.
The Origin Story
The two shareholders of Hive5, Andrius Rupšys and Ričardas Vandzinskas, met in 2021 at the Lithuanian-based company Ruptela. This is a company founded by Andrius in 2007, which specialises in the development of GPS tracking devices and which employs 150+ people.
Ričardas, who until then had worked a lot in finance at logistics and accounting companies, was hired as CFO of the Ruptela Group at the time. The idea for Hive5 came about after Ruptela’s customers increasingly complained that it was difficult to obtain a business loan from a bank. With Hive5, both wanted to establish an alternative financing platform for the growing demand for loans (also from Ruptela customers).
Hive5 Management
Ričardas Vandzinskas, one of the two co-founders, serves as CEO of the Hive5 P2P platform. He started his professional career as an auditor at PWC. In the course of his career, he worked in many other positions, primarily as a financial expert. Until the founding of Hive5, he had no connection to the traditional lending business.
In May 2020, Ričardas was hired as CFO for the Aventus Group. However, he has been let go after only two months, before the end of the probationary period. According to Ričardas, the separation occurred as he could not identify with the vision and business practices of the Aventus Group.
On the “About Us” page, investors can take a look at the other team members of Hive5.
Business Model & Finances
Throughout the process of due diligence, investors should also have a look at the business model of a P2P platform as well as the overall financial situation. How does the company earn money? Does the platform operate profitably? And how well is the company positioned financially? In the following paragraphs of this Hive5 review, you can follow-up on those questions.
Monetization
How does Hive5 earn money? The P2P platform earns its money primarily through a commission fee, which is charged to lenders represented on the marketplace. According to Ričardas, the commission fee is currently at 4%. In the future, this is to be reduced to 2% as soon as the size of the managed loan portfolio has increased.
Profitability
Is Hive5 profitable? According to CEO Ričardas, Hive5 is already profitable at the holding level (source at 15:53). A statement that should certainly be questioned. So far, the main revenue comes from their Polish lender, which is currently controlling a portfolio of about EUR 2 million.
From the outside, it seems difficult to imagine how a team of around 20 employees, expenses for IT, marketing, etc. can be supported by this.
This assumption was also confirmed in the consolidated annual report for 2022 (source). According to the financial report of Hive Finance, the company made a loss of EUR 755,000, while generating a revenue of EUR 135,000. Hive5 is therefore not profitable yet, despite their CEO spreading publicly false information on the financial status of the company.
Investing on Hive5
How does Hive5 work and what should investors know and consider when investing on the plaform? In the following sections of my Hive5 review you will find all the necessary information that you need.
Loan Offering
Hive5 works with three lenders on its marketplace: The Polish company “Ekspres Pozyczka”, the Lithuanian company “Ruptela” and the Spanish company “Mana Concept”. The shareholders of all three companies overlap with the shareholders of the platform. Hence, investors should consider this conflict of interest.
Selecting those lenders, investors have the opportunity to invest in both short-term consumer loans and secured business loans. In the future, other secured loan products, such as “green loans”, machinery leasing and sustainable real estate loans, are to be added. Geographically, expansion is planned in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Costs and Fees
There are currently no costs or hidden fees for investors on Hive5.
Neither for deposits and withdrawals, nor for other functionalities or investing itself.
Promoted Returns
On its website, Hive5 advertises a return of up to 14.5%. The interest rate for the loans is currently between 12% and 14%. As the P2P platform exceeds my risk tolerance and I am therefore not planning to invest with Hive5 myself, I cannot provide my own reference value in this regard.
Hive5 Auto Invest
On Hive5, investors can invest in loans both manually and via an Auto Invest. This allows the returns to be automatically reinvested in the criteria that you preset yourself.
With HIve5 Auto Invest, individual lenders can be selected as well as the term of the loans, the interest rates, the investment amount or the maximum portfolio value.
The minimum investment amount per loan is currently EUR 10, which is standard practice for most platforms.
Hive5 Forum
If you have questions about Hive5, other platforms or different p2p-related topics, you can join the re:think P2P Community on Facebook and engage in discussions with 1,000+ other private retail investors.
Alternatively, you can also find the latest news and updates on my Telegram channel.
Hive5 Taxes
Generally, interest income generated by loan financing is considered capital income and thus must be declared as such in the tax return. There is no withholding tax on Hive5 at this moment.
For the tax declaration, investors will find an overview (Accounting) in the dashboard, where a tax report can be downloaded for a self-selected period. This information can then be submitted to the respective tax office as part of a tax return.
Hive5 Risks
Investors should look very carefully at the potential risk factors when evaluating a P2P platform. What is it that investors need to be aware of when it comes to Hive5? Where are the underlying risks and how are they assessed?
Juozas Rupšys and Credon
Juozas Rupšys is a Lithuanian businessman who has developed creditonline.eu, a white-label software solution for lenders as well as P2P platforms.
According to Ričardas, Hive5 also uses the products and services of Juozas, who is apparently also the godfather of Hive Finance majority shareholder Andrius Rupšys (source at 18:39).
Juozas Rupšys is also listed in the Polish company register of Argentum Capital, one of Hive5’s lenders, as a former shareholder of the company (2009-2012). Click here for the extract of the Argentum Capital company register.
This connection is a bad sign as Juozas has been called out in the past with a semi-professional P2P platform called Credon. Via the Lithuanian parent company “HST KOMUNIKACIJOS, UAB“, Juozas Rupsys owns 100% of the shares in the Croatian “Credon P2P d.o.o.“
On my Credon Review page, I have summarised the chronology and events surrounding the background of the platform. Anyone interested in Hive5 should look into the past and the business practices of the current business partners. Cross-connections of this kind should be taken very seriously, as they are not adding to the reputation and ethics of a new P2P platform.
Legal Threats
After publishing my Hive5 review, the company tried to take legal action against the critical reporting of this blog (see document). In particular, they tried to remove the links between Juozas Rupšys, Credon and Hive5.
As part of this attempted censorship, two of my videos on YouTube were also reported and later blocked (further information).
Actions like these make it clear that constructive criticism does not seem to exist in the Hive5 universe and that the basic freedom of speech right in Germany is neither recognised nor respected by the platform.
Paid Reviews
In the past, Hive5 has not only financed a large number of external blog articles and YouTube videos, the P2P lending platform has recently also bought positive reviews on Trustpilot.
According to their email, Hive5 pays its investors EUR 25 if they leave a (positive) review on Trustpilot.
As of 31 January 2024, 208 of the total 234 Hive5 reviews (89%) had only been created in the last 30 days (source). The platform has an outstanding rating of 4.7 points on Trustpilot.
However, a neutral and fact-based review of the P2P platform has been reported and blocked by Hive5 (further information).
Is Hive5 a Safe P2P Platform?
There are a number of reasons why investors should be very careful before investing their money with Hive5. Firstly, it is an extremely young and still unregulated P2P platform, secondly, the platform has attracted negative attention due to a number of entanglements and unacceptable business practices.
These include shareholder overlaps between the Hive5 P2P platform and all lenders represented on the marketplace (conflicts of interest), public false statements regarding the financial stability of the company, cooperation with dubious and dodgy business partners, purchased reviews on Trustpilot, paid PR for bloggers and YouTubers as well as legal threats against critical opinions.
Pros & Cons
In this section I have listed the biggest advantages and disadvantages of Hive5.
Advantages
- Ruptela: The lender “Ruptela” is a large and financially successful SME company from Lithuania.
Disadvantages
- Track Record: The operational start of the platform only took place in September 2022.
- Regulation: Hive5 is a P2P platform incorporated in Croatia and is therefore not subject to supervision or control by any financial authority.
- False Statements: The Hive5 CEO publicly claimed that the Hive Finance Group was already profitable, which was not the case at the time (Loss of EUR 755,000 in 2022).
- Profitability: The Hive Finance Group is economically not profitable (Loss of EUR 755,000 in 2022)
- Conflicts of Interest: There are overlapping shareholders between the Hive5 P2P platform and all lenders represented on the marketplace.
- Cooperation Partners: Hive5 cooperates with service providers who have been involved in a previous P2P scam-like platform (Credon).
- Paid Promotion: Hive5 is heavily financing external blog articles and YouTube videos in order to buy positive PR.
- Intimidation: Hive5 uses legal threats to respond to critical content by finance bloggers in order to intimidate them (see document).
- Unrealistic Numbers: The numbers for investor growth at Hive5 appear to be extremely unrealistic compared to other P2P platforms (approx. 4,000 new investors in November 2023).
- Paid Reviews: Hive5 pays its investors EUR 25 if they leave a review on Trustpilot (source).
Hive5 Alternatives
The closest Hive5 alternative is PeerBerry. Both platforms have a strong overlap in terms of the legal jurisdiction of the platform (Croatia), the operational location (Lithuania), and the underlying business model (marketplace). In addition, there are similarly strong overlaps between the platform and lenders at shareholder level.
You can find other Hive5 alternatives on the P2P Platform Comparison page.
Summary Hive5 Review 2024
Hive5 is a new P2P platform from Croatia whose development investors should better watch from the sidelines.
The reasons have been pointed out at varius stages of this Hive5 review: Little track record, financial instability of the entire holding structure, conflicts of interest among the shareholders as well as cross-connections to co-operation partners with ethically questionable motives.
Investors should also bear in mind that the platform has made public false statements in the past regarding the financial stability of the company and has also bought positive reviews on Trustpilot on a large scale.
Under these circumstance, the legal threats against critical opinions, such as from this blog, unfortunately only appear to be the tip of the iceberg.
There is currently no real USP for investing on a high-risk P2P platform like HIve5.
FAQ Hive5 Review
Hive5 is a Croatian-based P2P marketplace with Lithuanian roots, where investors can invest in both consumer and business loans, while earning a return of up to 14%.
The Croatian-based Hive5 P2P platform belongs to the Lithuanian company Hive Finance. This holding company is owned by two shareholders. Andrius Rupšys, successful founder of the GPS company Ruptela, owns 65% of the company shares. The other 35% is held by Ričardas Vandzinskas.
There are a number of reasons why investors should be very careful before investing their money with Hive5. Firstly, it is an extremely young and still unregulated P2P platform, secondly, the platform has attracted negative attention due to a number of entanglements and unacceptable business practices.
Juozas Rupšys is a Lithuanian businessman who was busted in the past with a semi-professional P2P scam called “Credon” (Q3/2021 to Q2/2022). “Credon P2P d.o.o.”, where Juozas Rupšys held 50% of the shares, dissolved promptly before any major damage could be done.
Hi, ich bin Denny! Seit Januar 2019 schreibe ich auf diesem Blog über meine Erfahrungen beim Investieren in P2P Kredite. Meine Analysen sollen Privatanlegern dabei helfen reflektierte und gut informierte Anlageentscheidungen treffen zu können. Dafür schaue ich mir die Risikoprofile der einzelnen P2P Plattformen an, hinterfrage deren Entwicklungen, teile meine persönlichen Einschätzungen und beobachte übergeordnete Trends aus der Welt des Crowdlendings.
Mein Bestseller "Geldanlage P2P Kredite" gilt in Fachkreisen als das beste deutschsprachige Finanzbuch zum gleichnamigen Thema. Zudem versammeln sich in der P2P Kredite Community auf Facebook tausende von Privatanlegern, die sich regelmäßig über die Anlageklasse P2P Kredite austauschen.