Hive5 Review 2026

What is 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.

Hive5 at a Glance

All key facts and figures about Hive5 at a glance.

For those who prefer watching over reading, take a look at my Hive5 video review:

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).

Business Model

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.

Hive5 News

P2P lending is a dynamic asset class where investors should stay continuously informed. You will find the latest news on Hive5 on my P2P lending news page, where I cover other P2P platforms as well.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to my Telegram channel or WhatsApp group (both free of charge) to receive real-time updates as soon as new developments emerge.

Ownership and Management

Who are the main shareholders and management executives behind Hive5? Let’s have a look!

Hive5 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.

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.

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 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?

Financial Stability

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.

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.

Advantages and Disadvantages

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).

Summary Hive5 Review

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.

Hive5 Alternatives

Already invested in Hive5? Or looking for similar platforms? Here are three Hive5 alternatives from the P2P market.

PeerBerry: A P2P marketplace incorporated in Croatia, working closely with partners from within the Aventus Group. Like Hive5, PeerBerry is based in Croatia and follows a marketplace model with close ties between the platform and its loan originators. The key difference: PeerBerry has a notably longer track record and has built a strong reputation through its performance during times of crisis. More information in my PeerBerry review.

Robocash: A P2P marketplace also incorporated in Croatia, with a long-standing track record dating back to 2017. Compared to Hive5, Robocash stands out through a notably profitable and crisis-proven parent company, as well as regularly published and audited financial reports. More information in my Robocash review.

Nectaro: A regulated P2P marketplace based in Latvia, operating under MiFID II regulations and backed by an internationally established group. Loans are primarily used to fund the lending operations of the parent company. Affiliated loan originators offer competitive interest rates and a solid track record. More information in my Nectaro review.

You can find other Hive5 alternatives on the P2P Platform Comparison page.

FAQ Hive5 Review

Denny Neidhardt

denny@rethink-p2p.de | Webseite

I’m Denny Neidhardt, the founder of re:think P2P. On this blog, I help retail investors make smarter, well-informed investment decisions in the world of P2P lending. Since 2019, I’ve been publishing in-depth analyses, platform reviews, and risk assessments to bring more transparency to this investment space. My goal is to challenge marketing claims, question developments, and empower investors with honest, independent insights.

• P2P Lending Update: June 2026
• BaFin Stops Ventus Energy: Which P2P Platforms Are Now At Risk?
• PeerBerry Review 2026: Growth, Expansion and My 5-Year Verdict
• P2P Unscripted – Episode 2: Are P2P Investments Still Safe?