Lonvest is a new platform in the P2P landscape that has started out in 2023. On the first sight, the newcomer appears to have many aspects in common with P2P platform Robocash, such as the legal structure and the investment profile.
There are overlaps in terms of the legal jurisdiction of both P2P platforms (Croatia) and the holding companies (Singapore) as well as the affiliation of several lending companies. Additional parallels come up with regard to short-term and buyback-guaranteed consumer loans and the fact that there is no manual option to select loans manually.
Is Lonvest therefore a kind of Robocash platform 2.0?
In this Lonvest review, we take a closer look at the profile of the P2P newcomer and whether it is worthwhile for investors to spend time and money on this platform. Beware that all the information that are covered in this Lonvest review are based on my own research. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on Lonvest or any other P2P 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 Lonvest.
- Lonvest is a P2P platform based in Croatia that started operations in 2023.
- The P2P platform offers the opportunity to invest in buyback-guaranteed consumer loans with terms of up to 30 days and an expected return of up to 13.5%.
- Lonvest is part of the SpaceCrew Finance Company, which was founded 2020 in Singapore. This holding company includes a number of international lenders who also offer their loans for financing via Lonvest.
- The mastermind and main shareholder of Lonvest is Ukrainian Roman Katerynchyk, who owns 80% of the SpaceCrew Finance Holding in Singapore. Roman Katerynchyk is an experienced manager in the lending business and has already built up a number of international lending companies since 2016.
| Founded / Started: | March 2023 / March 2023 |
| Legal Name: | Lonvest Platform LLC (LINK) |
| Headquarter: | Zagreb, Croatia |
| Regulated: | No |
| CEO: | Roman Katerynchyk (October 2022) |
| Assets Under Management: | 560.000 Euro (December 2024) |
| Number of Investors: | 500+ (December 2024) |
| Expected Return: | Up to 13,5% |
| Primary Loan Type: | Consumer Loans |
| Collateral: | Buyback Guarantee (60 Days) |
| Bonus: | 1% Cashback | 90 Tage |
About Lonvest
Lonvest is a P2P lending platform with jurisdiction in Croatia, which has been launched in March 2023. On Lonvest, investors have a chance to invest in buyback-guaranteed consumer loans with terms of up to 30 days, while achieving promoted returns of up to 13.5%.
The P2P platform Lonvest belongs to holding company ‘SpaceCrew Finance Company’, which was founded in 2020. The parent company assembles a number of international lenders that also offer their loans for financing on Lonvest.
SpaceCrew Finance
Lonvest is backed by its parent company SpaceCrew Finance, which was founded in January 2020 and is headquartered in Singapore. The group, which employs around 500 people, assembles a number of active lending companies. These include the following brands:
- MyCredit in Ukraine (2016)
- OnCredit in Sri Lanka (2021)
- ClickCredit in the Ukraine (2020)
- Monto in the Ukraine (2024)
- Clicredito in Mexico (2024)
Since March 2023, the Croatian-based company ‘Lonvest Platform LLC’ has also been part of the holding company, which is to be used as a source of financing for the Group’s lending markets.
The Group was registered on 3 January 2020 under the name ‘SPACE CREW ASIA PTE. LTD.’ in the company register in Singapore. The Ukrainian Lonvest founder Roman Katerynchyk owns 80% of the shares in the parent company. The remaining 20% is held by Cyprus-based T.A.S. OVERSEAS INVESTMENTS LIMITED, which in turn belongs to the TAS Group founded in Ukraine in 1998. In 2019, the company invested USD 3 million in the growth of the MyCredit brand, in which it also holds a 20% stake.
Ownership and Management
Who are the main shareholders and management executives behind Lonvest? Let’s have a look!
Lonvest Ownership
Who owns Lonvest? The platform is officially operated by the Croatian company ‘Lonvest Platform LLC’, which was entered in the register on 14 March 2023. A look at the Croatian company register reveals that the platform is wholly owned by the Ukrainian Roman Katerynchyk as the sole shareholder.
Lonvest Management
Roman Katerynchyk is the CEO and mastermind behind Lonvest.
The Ukrainian businessman, who studied business administration and management at Kharkiv University in Ukraine, pursued many entrepreneurial activities in the fintech sector. These include building up many international lenders, which are operating in Ukraine, Poland, Mexico or Sri Lanka.
In 2020, he founded the Space Crew Finance Group in Singapore. Today, this holding company brings together the lenders that he co-founded.
Other Lonvest team members can be found on this page.
Business Model and Finances
Throughout the due diligence process, investors should also have a look at the business model of a P2P platform as well as their 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 Lonvest review, you can follow-up on those questions.
Business Model
Lonvest offers lenders the opportunity to finance their loans via the P2P platform. These are only affiliated lending companies that are also part of the SpaceCrew Finance parent company. External lenders are not considered at the moment.
The business model can therefore be compared with platforms such as Viainvest, Robocash or Bondora, where investors can also find a strong shareholder overlap between lenders and the P2P platform.
Monetization
How does Lonvest earn money? Lonvest receives a commission fee, which is charged to the lenders for financing their loans on the platform. The P2P platform has not provided any specific details about the exact numbers.
Profitability
Is Lonvest profitable? The P2P platform was primarily established as a cost centre to finance the loans of the lenders who have come together under the umbrella of the SpaceCrew Finance parent company. In this regard, the profitability of Lonvest is only of secondary importance.
Instead, the focus should be a lot more on the financial stability of the holding company, which also advertises a group guarantee in the event of loan defaults. However, as no audited annual reports are published, no conclusions can be drawn with regard to the financial health of the parent company.
The Lonvest team has only provided data points for their working capital since 2021. Due to the lack of verifiability of these numbers though, the benefit for investors is rather low.
Sign Up and Bonus
To invest on Lonvest, investors must fulfil two requirements: A minimum age of 18 years and a residence in the European Economic Area.
The registration process on Lonvest is fairly simple and intuitive. After opening an account via email, the KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and AML (Anti-Money-Laundering) questionnaires must be completed on the website. This is followed by identity verification.
For deposits above EUR 10,000, further checks are also carried out on the origin of the funds.
Furthermore, deposits are currently only accepted from credit, payment or e-money institutions that are based in the European Union or in third countries where AML systems are comparable to the EU systems.
Legal entities can register on Lonvest as well.
Lonvest Bonus
If Lonvest’s profile appeals to you, you can receive an additional investment bonus for Lonvest via this blog.
To do this, you must first register with Lonvest via this link. You will then receive a 1% cashback on all investments you make in the first 90 days after successful registration. For an investment of EUR 10,000, this corresponds to a cashback of EUR 100.
Investing on Lonvest
How does investing on Lonvest work? Let’s take a closer look at the different aspects.
Loan Offering
Lonvest is still a small P2P lending platform with a manageable amount of loans. So far, only loans from Sri Lanka (OnCredit) and Mexico (Clicredito) have been offered on the platform.
When adding new lenders to the platform, Lonvest restricts itself exclusively to new ventures of the SpaceCrew Finance Group. Already established lenders who can finance themselves from their own resources will not be added to the P2P platform for the time being.
The loans on Lonvest are primarily consumer loans with terms of up to 30 days, which are offered with interest rates of 11% to 13.5%.
Costs and Fees
On Lonvest, there are currently no costs or hidden fees charged to investors. Neither for registering, investing via the primary market nor for withdrawing funds.
Expected Returns
The expected return on Lonvest is largely determined by the offered interest rates and the repayment quality of the lenders. Lonvest has not yet encountered any problems, which is why the expected return should be in the low double-digit range.
Lonvest Auto Invest
At the moment, investors on Lonvest can only use the Auto Invest feature to invest in loans on the platform. A manual selection of loans is therefore not possible.
This approach already applies on other P2P platforms like Robocash, where investors have also no influence on the selection of individual loans.
Apart from that, the Auto Invest at Lonvest is structured somewhat differently. In contrast to many other P2P platforms, where investors can decide how much money is invested in a single loan, investors at Lonvest have to specify a maximum amount for their investment. The algorithm then automatically allocates the loans in different sizes, with the minimum investment amount being EUR 10.
Additional selection choices can be made with borrower countries, investment term and whether the income should be reinvested.
Secondary Market
Lonvest doesn’t offer a secondary market. Loans that are allocated via Auto Invest must therefore be held until the end of the loan term. Because the terms are only up to 30 days, a secondary market is only necessary to a limited extent.
Buyback Guarantee
Lonvest offers a buyback guarantee as well, which is widespread in the P2P lending environment. This means that loans that are delayed in repayment over a certain period of time are repurchased by the issuer.
In the case of Lonvest, this period is 60 days. When the loan gets repurchased, the accrued interest is also reimbursed.
The repurchase itself is financed by the respective lender, which issued the loan in the first place. If the lender does not have the financial capacity, the parent company steps in to cover up the outstanding claim. Lonvest is therefore advertising both a buyback guarantee and a group guarantee.
Lonvest 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 Lonvest.
Lonvest 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, Lonvest does not withhold any taxes that is generated from interest income.
For the tax report, investors will need to navigate to the “Statement” tab in the main menu. Here, investors can then select the category “Tax Report” and download the required document for the tax declaration purpose.
Lonvest 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 Lonvest? Where are the underlying risks and how can they be assessed?
Platform Risk
The operational launch of the platform took place in March 2023, meaning that Lonvest, which is listed in Croatia under the name ‘Lonvest Platform LLC’, is a comparatively new and young company in the P2P lending environment.
Due to its jurisdiction in Croatia, the platform is not subject to any control or supervision by a financial authority. While examples such as PeerBerry, Robocash or Esketit have shown that regulation is not necessarily required for a well-functioning P2P platform, investors still pay the risk premium with less compliance and transparency.
This makes the specific assessment of the parent company and their lenders even more important. While the track record of some lenders could speak in favour of a good performance, there are no qualified insights into the financial stability of these companies.
Lender Risk Assessment
In direct discussions with Lonvest founder Roman Katerynchyk, some interesting insights on the topic of risk assessment came to light, particularly with regard to their market entry in Mexico.
At first, new loan applications are subject to automated checks with various databases, such as credit agencies or fraud detection software, in order to make an initial pre-filtering. Lonvest then relies heavily on new and modern AI technologies for the risk assessment.
There are two different assessment procedures that are used for both new and existing customers. If new borrowers receive a positive assessment, they are then called again by the lender and their identity is verified again (also offline) before the loan is paid out. In contrast, a different model is used for existing customers, which is based much more on past repayment behaviour. The repeat rate for Mexican borrowers is currently at 85%.
At the moment, a total of 500 to 600 loan applications are submitted via the Clicredito brand in Mexico every day, of which only around 11% are granted. The target for non-performing loans is currently at 15% for existing customers and 18% to 20% for new customers. Given a default rate above 25%, Lonvest has admitted that there is still room for improvement.
By way of comparison: In Ukraine, where the company has been active since 2016, NPLs are stated to be below 10%.
Advantages and Disadvantages
In this section, I have listed the most important advantages and disadvantages of Lonvest.
Advantages
- Experience: Lonvest founder Roman is an experienced manager in the lending business.
- Clean Record: So far, no problems have come up on the platform with repayments.
- Return: Above-average interest rates.
- Liquidity: Loan terms of up to 30 days.
Disadvantages
- Track Record: Lonvest is a new and inexperienced platform in the P2P environment.
- Offering: Lonvest is a small platform with a manageable amount of available loans.
- Regulation: Lonvest is not controlled and monitored by any financial regulator.
- Transparency: There are no available financial statements of the parent company.
Lonvest Alternatives
Which Lonvest alternatives are worth considering for investors?
Looking at the business model and the main features of Lonvest, the company is most comparable to platforms such as Robocash, Viainvest and Esketit.
Robocash
At first glance, the overlaps between Robocash and Lonvest appear to be very large. Both platforms are based in Croatia, while the platform itself belongs to a holding company based in Singapore. In addition, the parent company owns several international lenders who have their loans financed via their own P2P platforms. In addition, the focus is on short-term and buyback-guaranteed consumer loans. Both platforms also lack the option to select loans manually. Because Robocash is one of the best P2P lending platforms in Europe, there could certainly be worse role models for Lonvest. You can find more information in my Robocash review.
Viainvest
Viainvest is also a P2P lending platform that is operated by a parent company (VIA SMS Group) and under whose umbrella there are also a number of affiliated lending companies. In addition, Viainvest is also pursuing a focus on short-term consumer loans. An additional benefit of Viainvest is the license as an investment brokerage firm, which covers up to EUR 20,000 in the event of insolvency. Further information can be found in my Viainvest review.
Esketit
Esketit is an unregulated P2P platform based in Ireland that launched in December 2020. On the platform, investors can invest in a variety of international consumer loans and earn a return of up to 12%. Esketit has been one of the most popular platforms in the P2P lending environment for years due to its high liquidity, reliable repayments and competitive returns. You can find more information in my Esketit review.
You can find other Lonvest alternatives on the P2P Platform Comparison page.
Summary Lonvest Review 2024
What is the preliminary conclusion of this Lonvest review?
Lonvest is a platform that was founded in early 2023, which has the potential to develop into a solid alternative in the P2P lending environment. Given the limited track record though, long-term assessments of the platform’s development are extremely difficult.
The platform is backed by an experienced manager from the lending business who has already built up a large number of internationally active lenders. As many of these lenders are able to finance themselves from their own resources, Lonvest primarily serves as a source of financing for the new ventures of the Space Crew Finance parent company.
Sharing audited financial statements, both for the holding company and their lenders, would provide a better idea for investors about the underlying financial stability. If the unofficially communicated numbers can be taken seriously, the buyback and group garantee should be honoured under normal market conditions.
FAQ Lonvest Review
Lonvest is a P2P platform from Croatia, where investors can invest in repurchase-backed consumer loans with short maturities and interest rates of up to 13.5%.
The platform is operated in Croatia under the name ‘Lonvest Platform LLC’. Its ultimate beneficiary is the Ukrainian Roman Katerynchyk, who owns 100% of the shares.
Yes, this option exists. If loans are more than 60 days overdue, they are bought back by the lender. In addition to the buyback guarantee, the platform also advertises a group guarantee.
The Lonvest Auto Invest feature enables setting configurations for the maximum investment amount, the borrower countries, the investment term and the reinvestment option.