Income Marketplace Review: Top 5 P2P Platform (Here’s why!)

Income Marketplace is a strongly growing platform in the current P2P environment. The P2P lending platform, which is based in Estonia, is characterised in particular by its highly innovative security concept, which is designed to significantly minimise the lender default risk.

Can their security features live up to the expectation of investors? Or are they simply marketing tools to differentiate from other P2P platforms? This will be one of many questions that are covered in my Income Marketplace review 2024.

Please note that all the information that are published in this Income Marketplace review are based on my own research and personal experiences with the platform. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on any platform. More information can be found in the Disclaimer.

Further analyses of other platforms can be found on my P2P Platform Review page.

Summary

Before we get started, here is a quick summary with the most important information about Income Marketplace.

• Income Marketplace is an unregulated, Estonia-based P2P marketplace where investors can invest in buyback-secured loans and earn a return of up to 15%.
• The platform is operated by the Estonian company “Income Company OÜ”, which was founded in July 2020. The operational launch of the platform took place in January 2021.
• Income Marketplace stands out with its high standard when it comes to lender due diligence. The focus is on security features such as the junior share and the cash flow buffer. Less than 1% of managed investor assets are currently in recovery.
• The combination of portfolio quality, competitive interest rates and a high degree of liquidity makes Income Marketplace one of the most attractive options in the P2P lending environment in 2024.

About Income Marketplace

Income Marketplace is an Estonia-based P2P lending platform that was founded in July 2020. The operational launch of the platform took place in January 2021. Since then, investors have been able to invest in a variety of international consumer loans on the P2P marketplace and achieve a return of up to 15%.

What is particularly striking about Income is its marketing as the supposedly “safest” P2P platform for investing in loans. The reason for this are newly conceived and innovative security measures such as the Junior Share or the Cash Flow Buffer, which differ from the classic concept of the buyback guarantee.

Although Income has had to overcome a number of challenges with lenders in the past, the overall portfolio quality can be assessed as extremely positive. Currently, less than 1% of managed investor assets are in collection and investors have not yet suffered any losses.

Combined with high interest rates and short-term assets, Income Marketplace is one of the best alternatives in the current P2P lending environment.

The Origin Story

Kimmo Rytkönen has been working in the international lending business since 2011. Among other jobs, he was the founder of the Polish lender Aasa Polska, which was also represented on Mintos at the time.

Kimmo has not only gained a lot of experiences from the lender side, but also as a private investor on various P2P platforms. He experienced first-hand how little investors were protected after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and how problems and weaknesses of some P2P platforms have been exposed.

Kimmo subsequently took these events as an opportunity to build a new P2P marketplace with additional security features according to his own ideas and standards. In July 2020, he founded the company “Income Company OÜ”, which marks the origin of Income Marketplace.

Ownership and Management

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

Income Marketplace Ownership

Who owns Income Marketplace? The P2P marketplace is operated by the company “Income Company ÖU”, which was entered in the Estonian company register on 22 July 2020.

Due to a larger field of founding members and an interim fundraising round at SeedBlink, the ownership structure is broadly diversified.

The main shareholders include:

• The German Dr. Karl Hauptmann owns 39.86% of the shares. He is the chairman of a large private equity group from Berlin and was one of the platform’s first supporters.
• The Finn Kimmo Rytkönen holds 17.44% of the shares through his company “KJ Holdings OÜ”. He is the face of the platform. He was also CEO of Income Marketplace until October 2023.
• The Estonian Meliina Räty owns 9.59% of the shares through her company “MR Holdings OÜ”. She was one of the co-founders of Income. Her time as COO ended at the end of 2021.

The remaining shares are distributed among the other founding team, angel investors, private equity firms and smaller private investors who have secured shares in the company via SeedBlink.

Income Marketplace Management

Since October 2023, Estonian Lavrenti Tsudakov is CEO of Income Marketplace. He had already worked previously for the platform since June 2021. At Income, he was employed as COO, which is why he should have a good understanding about the operational challenges in the day-to-day business.

Income founder Kimmo Rytkönen, who has been CEO of the platform since its inception, is now focusing more on the strategic challenges at Income Marketplace. These include the onboarding of new lenders, the licensing process for becoming a regulated P2P platform and the company’s next funding round.

Business Model and 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 Income Marketplace review, you can follow-up on those questions.

Business Model

Income Marketplace pursues a P2P lending marketplace model. The platform is therefore an intermediary between investors, who aim to generate a return by providing their capital, and the lenders on the other side, who offer their assets for financing via the platform.

Unlike the ‘classic’ P2P model, in which the platform also scores the borrowers, Income focuses primarily on acquiring economically sound fintech companies that require loan financing to scale their business model.

Monetization

How does Income earn money? As a marketplace, Income monetises itself primarily through a commission fee, which is charged to lenders for financing their loans on the platform. In this regard, the business and monetisation model is not much different from other P2P marketplaces such as Mintos, Debitum or PeerBerry.

For those who want to know more details, the platform fee at Income ranges between 2% and 4% of the outstanding loan portfolio and is calculated on the basis of a daily balance. Invoices are issued monthly.

According to the 2023 annual report, Income Marketplace was able to generate a revenue of around EUR 432,000 from commission fees, which is roughly twice as much as in the previous year.

Profitability

Is Income Marketplace profitable? No, the P2P platform has not yet reached the break-even point. Expenses for employees, IT and marketing have not yet exceeded the income, which is not unusual for new platforms that are still in a growth phase.

According to the most recent annual report for 2023, which can be reviewed in the Estonian company register, Income Company ÖU had a reported loss of around EUR 590,000. Compared to the previous year, the loss result has thus decreased by approx. 40%.

According to current forecasts, the company plans to break even on a monthly basis by the end of 2025. This will require managed investor assets of around EUR 30 million. Until profitability is achieved, the platform’s shareholders are prepared to finance future growth with equity.

Sign Up and Bonus

To invest on Income Marketplace, investors must meet three requirements:

• A minimum age of 18 years,
• a residence in the European Economic Area
• and a European bank account.

The registration process at Income is fairly simple and intuitive. After opening the account via email, the KYC and AML questionnaires have to be completed, followed by the identity verification through Veriff.

Also legal entities have the opportunity to sign up on Income Marketplace.

Income Marketplace Bonus

If you consider investing on Income Marketplace, a sign up through this link will enable you to get an unlimited cashback bonus of 1% in the first 30 days after registration. 

Investing on Income Marketplace

How does Income Marketplace work and what should investors know and consider when investing on the plaform? In the following sections of my Income Marketplace review you will find all the necessary information that you need.

Loan Offering

There are a variety of international lenders on Income. These are geographically spread across the regions of Europe, South America and South East Asia. Below is a brief overview of the largest and most important lenders on Income Marketplace.

• Danarupiah: The Indonesian lender has been with Income since December 2021 and is one of the largest cornerstones of the platform. The assets have a maximum term of six months and offer above-average interest rates of up to 15%. More information in my DanaRupiah review.
• ITF Group: The ITF Group, founded 2012 in Bulgaria, has been financing some of its assets via Income since July 2022. The short-term consumer and instalment loans have interest rates of up to 15% and terms of up to 24 months.
• Ibancar: Since 2017, the Spanish-based lender has already been on a number of different P2P lending platforms. Even in times of crisis, there have never been any problems with repayments. The instalment loans have an interest rate of up to 12.5% with terms of up to 37 months.
• Hoovi: The Estonian lender primarily offers instalment loans between 10% and 12%. An integral part of Income Marketplace since May 2022.
• Sandfield Capital: The UK-based and FCA-regulated lender offers financing for civil litigation, which is covered by an external insurance. Interest rates of up to 13.5% and terms of up to 24 months.
• Virtus Lending: The Kosovo-based lender finances leasing loans for used cars and traditional consumer loans. The loan terms range from 3 to 84 months, with interest rates of between 10% and 12%.

The lenders represented on Income Marketplace offer a wide variety of loan types, maturities and interest rates for investors.

To better assess the financial stability of the individual lenders, the following table showcases the most recent business numbers of the respective lenders. The table is sorted according to the profit, irrespective of whether an auditor has reviewed the report.

The numbers for Danarupiah and Danabijak have been converted from IDR to EUR, as have the ITF Group’s figures from BNG to EUR.

Costs and Fees

There are no fees or hidden costs for retail investors on Income Marketplace. Neither for deposits or withdrawals, nor for the functionalities when investing on the platform.

If you want to earn a passive income by investing in private consumer loans, you don’t have to worry about additional costs at Income that would reduce the advertised return.

Expected Returns

Lenders are free to choose their own interest rate on Income Marketplace. There is only an upper limit set by Income with a maximum cap at 15%. According to the P2P platform, the average interest rate is 13.78%.

So what returns can investors expect when investing on Income Marketplace? My personal performance after 2+ years is 13.34%. This is primarily due to the high quality of the loan portfolio. Currently, less than 1% of the managed investor assets are in debt collection, which is an outstanding number in the P2P lending environment.

Accordingly, there is a high probability that the returns advertised on Income can also be achieved if there are no major problems with lenders in the future.

Auto Invest

On Income Marketplace, investors have the opportunity to invest manually in loans as well as through an Auto Invest feature. 

With the Income Auto Invest, individual lenders can be selected as well as the borrower countries, the term of the loans, the interest rates, the investment amount, the loan type or the loan status. In addition, there are even more advanced filter options, where you can also filter by the total loan amount or the remaining loan amount, among other things.

The minimum investment amount per loan is currently EUR 10, which is common practice for most platforms.

Income Marketplace does not (yet) have a secondary market. The marketplace plans to introduce this functionality in the future though.

Income Marketplace App

In September 2021, Income Marketplace also released an app for the platform. Investors can download them through iOS (App Store) as well as via Android (Play Store).

Income Marketplace Forum

The P2P lending industry is a fast-moving environment. Hence, make sure to stay on top of all relevant information by subscribing to my channels on Telegram or WhatsApp. This way, you will always receive the latest information from the P2P industry, including platform news regarding Income Marketplace. 

Income Marketplace Taxes

Generally, interest income generated by loan financing is considered investment income and must be reported as such on the tax declaration. Unlike other platforms, Income Markeplace does not withhold any taxes at the moment.

For the tax declaration, investors can find an overview in the dashboard where a tax report for the respective year can be downloaded. This information can then be forwarded to the respective tax office as part of a tax declaration.

Income Marketplace 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 Income Marketplace? Where are the underlying risks and how are they assessed?

It is striking that Income markets itself as safest platform for investing in loans. In doing so, the platform refers in particular to security features such as the “junior shares” or the “cashflow buffer”. 

Buyback Obligation

At first, Income Marketplace is also offering the concept of the buyback obligation. This doesn’t differ much from the buyback guarantee on other platforms. Any loan repayment that is 60+ days late will be bought back by the respective lender, reimbursing both the principal and the accrued interest.

As it is often the case, investors should keep in mind that a guarantee is only as good as the financial strength of the lender promising it.

Junior Shares

The Junior Shares are a modified version of the common “skin in the game” concept. The general assumption is that lenders should be similarly motivated to collect the debt in the event of default. Both parties, investors and lenders, are equal in this case.

Junior Shares on Income Marketplace differ as far as the lender’s “skin in the game” share is registered as a junior debt. This means that lenders, in the scenario of a default, have a lower repayment priority. Only when all outstanding receivables from the investors have been repaid in full, the lender has the option of get back his share. Accordingly, investors enjoy a preferential treatment in the event of default.

There are specific SPVs created for settlement, making borrower repayments being directly under the control of Income Marketplace. Lenders must also transfer their individual share of junior shares into this structure.

Cashflow Buffer

At Income Marketplace, the junior share is intended in particular to hedge the risk of default by borrowers and to encourage lenders to work to the best of their ability. The cashflow buffer, on the other hand, is designed to address the risk of a potential lender default.

The cashflow buffer is made up of several aspects. It is a combination of:

• Loan profitability of the lender loan portfolio
• Risk adjustment on the part of Income Marketplace
• The Junior Share

In reality, the way it works is that Income Marketplace looks at the quality of the lenders’ loan portfolio and calculates how much money those loans make on a portfolio basis (see “historical repayment coefficient” in the chart) and how profitable they are. This determines the value of the collateral, similar to how it works with mortgage loans.

After taking into account possible risk factors such as currency fluctuations, pandemics or other value-reducing aspects, Income Marketplace checks how many junior shares are needed so that investors are fully covered in case of default. For this reason, junior shares among lenders, averaging 20% to 35%, are also significantly higher than the classic “skin in the game” share of 5% to 10%.

Defaulted Lender ClickCash

In October 2022, Income suspended the Brazilian lender ClickCash. At the time, the outstanding receivables totalled around EUR 180,000, while the cash flow from the pledged loan portfolio was only around EUR 50,000.

This leaves the question of why Income did not monitor the pledges more closely, which would have drawn attention to this problem at an earlier stage. In November 2023, the platform published a new repayment plan. According to the new schedule, EUR 5,000 is to be repaid to investors every month until the outstanding liabilities have been settled. If ClickCash does not honor the repayments, Income will bridge the instalments out of its own pocket.

Income Insights Podcast

In November 2023, Income launched a monthly podcast called “Income Insights” with founder Kimmo Rytkönen. The podcast aims to keep investors informed on the latest trends and developments of the marketplace.

As someone who has been actively involved at Income since almost the very beginning, I was asked to take over the hosting of the new format. My approach is to critically question the developments of the P2P platform and give investors a realistic insight into the challenges of the marketplace.

The Income Insights podcast is available on all major streaming platforms, as well as on the platform’s YouTube channel.

Advantages and Disadvantages

In this section, I have listed the most important advantages and disadvantages of Income Marketplace.

Advantages

• Due Diligence: Innovative mechanisms that protect investors even more effectively against default risks.
• Portfolio Quality: Less than 1% of managed investor assets are in debt collection.
• Losses: Investors have not yet incurred any capital losses.
• Expected Returns: The lenders on Income offer competitive interest rates of up to 15%.
• Liquidity: Income’s assets have an average maturity of less than two months.
• Auto Invest: Possibility to invest your money automatically.
• Communication: The Income team is very active in communicating with its investors across all platforms.

Disadvantages

• Profitability: The platform is still growing and is currently not profitable.
• Regulation: Income is not yet regulated and monitored by any financial supervisory authority.

Income Marketplace Alternatives

In terms of the business model, Income Marketplace is most comparable to other marketplaces such as Mintos, PeerBerry or Debitum. Those platforms have also a similar focus in terms of loan types and regional spread.

Mintos

With EUR 600+ million in investor assets under management and more than 500,000 registered users, Mintos is the largest P2P lending platform in Europe. In addition to a wide range of loans, the Latvian P2P marketplace also offers other asset classes. These include ETFs, bonds or real estate. Additional information can be found in my Mintos review.

PeerBerry

PeerBerry is also a P2P marketplace, but working exclusively with partners from the Aventus Group. In terms of investor assets under management, PeerBerry is the number two in Europe, just behind Mintos. The Croatian-based platform has attracted particular attention due to its good performance in times of crisis. PeerBerry partners have repaid more than EUR 45 million in war-affected loans to investors within two years. Additional information can be found in my PeerBerry review.

Debitum Investments

Debitum Investments (formerly Debitum Network) is a P2P marketplace based in Latvia and regulated by the local financial supervisory authority. What makes Debitum special is its unique positioning in the P2P lending environment, as it is regulated, follows a marketplace model and offers buyback-secured business loans. A combination that cannot be found in this particular form on any other P2P platform. Additional information can be found in my Debitum review.

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

Community Feedback

The Income Marketplace experience within the P2P lending community is rated as above average and positive. In the 2023 community voting, a strong score of 3.77 points was achieved with 87 votes (5th place out of 30 platforms). In the previous year, Income was ranked 7th (out of 20 platforms) with an average score of 3.15 points.

In 2024, Income Marketplace scored 3.23 points (160 ratings), which ultimately meant 9th place.

The most popular P2P platforms in 2024 have been Robocash, Profitus, Viainvest, PeerBerry and Esketit. The ratings are based on my P2P Community Voting 2024.

Summary Income Marketplace Review 2025

What is the final conclusion of my Income Marketplace review? Income is an ambitious and thoroughly innovative P2P platform from Estonia, whose development I have been following closely since its inception.

From April 2022 onwards, I have also been an active investor on the platform myself. After more than two years, my outstanding portfolio size is at EUR 12,000+, with an overall performance of 13.3%.

The marketing as the supposedly “safest” platform for investing in loans seems a little overstated. However, Income Marketplace can certainly back their argument with a decent portfolio performance so far. Thanks to innovative security mechanisms such as the Junior Share and the Cashflow Buffer, less than 1% of the managed investor assets are currently in debt collection. In addition, no losses have been incurred by investors to date.

Considering the excellent portfolio quality, in combination with competitive interest rates and a high degree of liquidity, Income Marketplace is currently one of the most attractive options in the P2P lending environment in 2024.

If you can deal with the lack of regulation and profitability in exchange for short-term assets and above-average interest rates, you should definitely consider Income Marketplace as an alternative for your P2P portfolio.

FAQ Income Marketplace Review