Mintos Review 2025: P2P Market Leader Worth Investing Again?

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. Therefore, the Latvian P2P marketplace enjoys a special status in the P2P market.

For years, Mintos’ vision was to establish itself as the leading marketplace for investing in loans. However, since receiving its European licence as an investment company in August 2021, Mintos has increasingly developed into a multi-asset platform that offers products such as ETFs, bonds and real estate in addition to loans.

In this Mintos review, we take a closer look at the risk-return profile of the Latvian platform. Among other things, we look at the business model, the financial situation, the investment offering and the risk factors that have become particularly apparent in the crises of recent years.

All the information that are covered in this Mintos review are based on my own personal research and my following of the platform since 2017. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on this or any other platform. 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 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.
• The platform is operated by AS Mintos Marketplace, which is controlled by the financial supervisory authority in Latvia since August 2021 and is regulated in accordance with MiFID II. As a result, investors’ accounts with up to EUR 20,000 are protected against misappropriation or insolvency of the platform by the investor compensation scheme.
• Mintos offers a variety of different asset classes for investing. In addition to traditional debt financing (loans), these also include assets such as ETFs, bonds and real estate.
• During the pandemic, but also due to the war in Ukraine, some weaknesses at Mintos have been exposed. As a result, up to EUR 150 million in investor funds have ended up in recovery.

About Mintos

Mintos is a P2P marketplace based in Latvia, which is operated by AS Mintos Marketplace. The operational launch of the platform took place in 2015. In the following years, Mintos has developed into one of the largest P2P platforms in Europe, thanks to a highly scalable business model with externally connected lenders.

Mintos currently manages investor assets of EUR 600+ million, with more than 500,000 registered users.

With its licence as a European investment company, Mintos has increasingly integrated other asset classes on the platform. In addition to the traditional and historically grown range of loans, the platform’s portfolio now also includes ETFs, bonds and real estate.

Origin Story

The Latvian Martins Sulte, one of the founders and CEO of Mintos, was in the final stages of his MBA studies in 2014. At the time he wrote down some ideas about what he could do after graduation. 

With his experience in the financial sector (Ernst & Young, later investment banker at SEA) and his natural interest in technology, he wanted to combine both of his passions.

After reading an article about the British platform Landbay on TechCrunch, he became aware of the P2P lending business model.

Together with Martins Valters, who had previously been his supervisor at Ernst & Young, the two founded the company Mintos in 2014.

Ownership and Management

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

Mintos Ownership

Who owns Mintos? The Latvia based P2P platform is operated by the company “AS Mintos Marketplace”. This company in turn belongs to the parent company “AS Mintos Holdings”. If we take a look in the Latvian company register, we will find a large number of different shareholders for this company.

The largest share, 30.52%, belongs to AS ALPPES Capital, which is 100% controlled by Aigars Kesenfelds. The Latvian multimillionaire, who was one of the four founders of 4finance in 2008, rarely appears in public. However, his reputation precedes him by far.

The article “The Fast Millionaire” portrays the rise and background of Aigars Kensenfelds’ empire and also reveals his links to Mintos.

Mintos Management

Mintos is represented at the top of the management team by CEO and co-founder Martins Sulte. The Latvian citizen worked as an investment banker at SEB for six years after studying economics at the University of Riga. After receiving his MBA in 2013, he then founded the Latvian P2P marketplace with Martins Valters, his former supervisor at Ernst & Young and current COO at Mintos.

In personal meetings with Martins from 2019 to 2024, he always made a tidy and competent impression. He was also frequently available to answer questions outside of official interviews.

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 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 Mintos review, we will follow-up on those questions.

Monetization

How does Mintos earn money? Let’s take a look at the latest annual report from 2023. This year, Mintos was able to generate a revenue of EUR 11.1 million, spread across seven different sources of income.

Mintos was able to earn 80% of its revenue from service fees charged to lenders for financing their loans on the P2P marketplace. Historically, this has always been the largest source of income for Mintos.

The net interest income, totalling EUR 1.2 million (11% of revenue), was earned by Mintos from the non-invested funds of investors. Mintos has had a business relationship with the asset manager BlackRock since its licensing in 2021, through which the platform parks the uninvested funds in a money market fund managed by BlackRock.

Other sources of revenue include one-off transaction fees for lenders, inactivity fees for investors, commissions on foreign currency exchanges and fees for transactions on the secondary market.

Profitability

Is Mintos profitable? After four consecutive years with losses, Mintos was able to make a profit again in 2022 and 2023. The result of EUR 1 million achieved in 2023 is also the highest profit in the platform’s history.

Balance Sheet

Mintos also has an impressive balance sheet.

KPIs such as the equity ratio (63%), the liquidity ratio (1.80) and the debt-to-equity ratio (0.58) are all within a good range. Only the historically high number of intangible assets could be looked at.

Sign Up and Bonus

In order to invest on Mintos, investors must meet two important requirements: A minimum age of 18 years and proof of a European bank account in their own name.

The registration process on Mintos is very simple and intuitive. After opening an account via email, the KYC and AML questionnaires must be filled out. This is followed by the verification of identity and the declaration of tax residence.

Mintos Bonus

Mintos is currently offering a bonus campaign for new investors. This campaign is active until 28 February 2025.

To participate in the Mintos bonus campaign, investors must first register via this partner link and then invest at least EUR 1,500. All asset classes are eligible for the bonus campaign, with the exception of Mintos Smart Cash.

Investing on Mintos

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

Loan Offering

The 80+ lenders represented on Mintos offer a variety of different loan types. These include:

• Private: Consumer Loans, payday loans, car loans
• Corporate: Business loans, agricultural and factoring loans
• Real Estate: Mortgage loans.  

From an investor’s perspective, the large number of loan types is a big advantage in terms of diversifying the loan portfolio on Mintos.

Investors can achieve further diversification with the geographical selection of their P2P loans, as up to 33 different countries can be selected for investments. The geographical focus is on Europe, with a focus on the Baltic States, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. However, it is also possible to invest in Africa (South Africa, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya), South America (Colombia, Mexico) or South East Asia (Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia).

The terms of the loans depend on the lending company and the structure of the individual bonds (notes).

Fractional Bonds

Due to its licensing as a brokerage company, Mintos can make further asset classes accessible to its investor community, apart from the lending business. Since October 2023, this also includes the possibility to invest in bonds.

Interesting here is both the low minimum investment amount of only EUR 50 and the fact that there are no management fees. The first offer on Mintos comes from Eleving Group (formerly Mogo). The bond of EUR 3 million runs for 5 years and offers investors an interest rate of 13%.

Mintos Core ETF Portfolio

With the Mintos Core ETF portfolio, the P2P marketplace added another asset class in December 2023. The platform takes care of all portfolio management aspects, including market analysis, selecting ETFs and scheduling transactions. Based on a catalogue of questions, the company puts together an ETF portfolio that is designed to meet the investor’s risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Investments in the Mintos Core ETF can be made from as little as EUR 50. Mintos does currently not charge any fees for this service.

Mintos Smart Cash

In June 2024, the P2P marketplace launched Mintos Smart Cash. Here, investors can invest their cash reserves flexibly and achieve a return of up to 3.75%. The return is generated by a money market fund which is managed by BlackRock.

Mintos has been working with BlackRock since its IBF licensing and manages non-invested funds from its investor accounts there. This enabled Mintos to generate a revenue of EUR 1.2 million in 2023 (10.7% of total revenue). Further details of Mintos Smart Cash have been discussed with CEO Martins Sulte during my stay in Riga.

Costs and Fees

Investors can register on Mintos free of charge. There are also no costs or hidden fees for deposits and withdrawals. However, there are some cost factors on Mintos to consider.

• Transaction fee for sales via secondary market: 0.85%
• Currency exchange: from 0.5%
• Access Mintos Smart Cash: 0.19%
• Inactivity fee: EUR 2.90 per month
• Management Fee Mintos Core Loans: 0,39%

Expected Returns

According to Mintos, the net return on the platform is between 10% and 12%. The calculation is made including an annual loss ratio. For this reason, the return on investment in 2020 is only at 2.4%.

Write-downs were taken on loans issued by suspended credit entities based on our recovery estimates.

Afer being five years with Mintos, my personal return is at 10.79%. However, there are still more than EUR 1,000 in the recovery process, which I declared as a loss since no recoveries have been made for two straight years. As a result, my total return has dropped to 7.22%.

Auto Invest

Investors on Mintos can take advantage by using the Auto Invest, which means that the returns can be automatically reinvested. With the Mintos Auto Invest, the following settings, among others, can be configured:

• Selection of lenders and borrower countries
• Loan type (Personal, Corporate, Real Estate)
• Buyback guarantee (Yes, No)
• Interest rate: From 5% to 30+% percent
• Loan term: Up to 72 months
• Investment amount per loan

After becoming a regulated marketplace, Mintos is now packaging similar loans into a financial instrument (Notes). The minimum investment amount for a Note is EUR 50 and can consist of up to 12 individual loans.

Also the secondary market can be used to invest in loans. The purchase itself comes without any fees. However, a fee of 0.85% applies when selling through the secondary market. A premium or discount can be selected as well.

Mintos App

Mintos launched a smartphone app for its investors in February 2020. Check here for iOS (App Store) and Android (Play Store) to download the app.

Mintos 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 Mintos. 

Mintos Taxes

After Mintos has become a licensed brokerage company, the platform is now legally obligated to withhold taxes on your income earnings that derives from investments into regulated financial instruments (Notes). The tax will be automatically withhold after receiving an interest payment.

The applicable tax rate is depending on the country of your tax residency and according to the submitted tax information and certificates. 

• 20% for private investors and tax residents of Latvia
• 20% for investors from outside the EU/EEA
• 5% for private investors with residency in the EU/EEA (except for Latvia)
• 0% for Lithuanian tax residents (tax certificate is required)
• 0% for legal entities 

Mintos Risks

Mintos faced several crises and problems in the past. While the origins of these crises are not related to Mintos (Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine), they have clearly exposed the problems at Mintos. Especially in 2020, there have been numerous actions and entanglements that have not painted a good picture with regards to the integrity of the platform. 

Platform Risks

AS Mintos Marketplace obtained an investment brokerage licence in August 2021, issued by the Latvian Central Bank. As a result, the platform is subject to the requirements of the MiFID II Financial Markets Directive.

This means investors’ accounts are protected up to EUR 20,000 by the investor compensation scheme in the event of the platform’s insolvency or misappropriation of investor funds. Possible lender defaults are not covered by the protection scheme though.

Another advantage of regulation is the governance and compliance to which Mintos must adhere. This includes the regular publication of audited annual financial statements, which gives investors an insight into the financial performance.

Conflicts of Interest

At the shareholder level, Mintos has always had strong overlaps with many of its lending companies. While this can be an advantage in terms of communication and possible settlements, there is also the risk that decisions primarily serve the interest of shareholders and only secondarily of the investors.

Especially in the time before Mintos became a regulated marketplace, there were some inglorious examples in which apparent conflicts of interest led to investors being disadvantaged.

Finko Group

With an outstanding portfolio of around EUR100 million, Finko Group was the largest non-bank lender on Mintos at the start of 2020. In the previous year, the group, which was represented by seven lenders on Mintos, financed EUR 366 million in consumer loans. The Group generated a profit of EUR 17.6 million.

Only a year later, there was nothing left of the group except an empty shell. Some lenders have had their licenses revoked under dubious circumstances (Varks in Armenia), others have filed for bankruptcy (Metrokredit and Kiva from Russia) or have been sold for a ridiculous price to competitors with the same shareholders (Sebo from Moldova), which in the end left no funds available to meet the buyback guarantee which was advertised to investors in advance.  

Varks

With an outstanding portfolio of EUR 30 million on Mintos, the Armenian lender Varks was the largest lender within the Finko Group at the time of the licence withdrawal in March 2020. Although there were already obvious problems with the lender on the part of the Armenian central bank at that time, Varks was promoted by Mintos in a variety of ways (including forward flows and cashback campaigns). Read this article to find out more about the entanglements between the shareholders and the broken debt clauses by Varks.

In the case of Varks, Mintos was well aware of the lender’s financial situation and problems with the central bank. Yet, no measures were taken or initiated to protect investors funds. In the end, it was publicly communicated that a two-year repayment plan was in place, serving the outstanding obgligations by the end of 2022. In June 2024, around EUR10 million in investor funds had still not been repaid. Mintos now forecasts a loss of 50% to 25%.

Corona Crisis / Covid-19 Pandemic

Mintos responded fairly fast to the spread of the Corona pandemic. As a consequence, both strategic and operational measures have been adjusted. In the first “Ask Mintos Anything” session on 19.03.2020, Mintos CEO Martins Sulte announced the following actions: Focus on financial stabilization and consolidation of the platform, cost reduction of approx. 40%, layoff of 45 employees and downsizing of marketing budgets. 

At the time of the session, the company had EUR 3.6 million in cash available, which would allow the platform to continue its business operations as usual over the next 15 to 18 months given its current cost structure.

Two measures that have been integrated by Mintos seemed to be very questionable though.

Schedule Extension

In October 2019, Mintos introduced a schedule extension for the first time. What has been an understandable idea in the first place (no repurchase of loans once the loan term is extended) soon became an excuses to allow lenders to maximize flexibility by the expense of investors liquidity.

In March 20220, the schedule extension was increased to up to 6 intervals of 31 days each. In the same month, Mintos announced that also defaulted loans can be further postponed. Not only did Mintos violate its own user agreements with these actions, they also worked more in favor of their (affiliated) lenders rather than the interest of their investor community.

New Terms & Conditions

The introduction of new terms and conditions in August 2020 was no less controversial. What was sold to investors as an update regarding “Mintos Strategies” included nothing less than the participation in legal costs as soon as the lenders (on-boarded by Mintos) are no longer able or willing to make loan repayments.

This leads to a liability shift from Mintos to its investors and a free ride for the platform. 

War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has also had a significant impact on Mintos investors. After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Mintos suspended all new investments on the primary market for Russian or Ukrainian loans. In total, eight lenders are affected by these restrictions (Creditter, DoZarplati, EcoFinance, Kviku, Lime, Mikro Kapital, Mokka and SOSCREDIT).

Mintos has taken the following actions in response:

Advantages and Disadvantages

In this section, I have listed the biggest advantages and disadvantages of Mintos.

Advantages

• Track Record: Mintos is among the most experienced platforms with a track record since 2015.
• Market Leader: Mintos manages investor assets of EUR 600+ million. 
• Regulation: Mintos has obtained a licence as a European investment company in August 2021.
• Diversification: Mintos offers a variety of asset classes, including debt financing, bonds and ETFs.
• Transparency: Audited business results are published regularly.
• Profitability: Mintos has been consistently profitable since 2022.

Disadvantages

• Due Diligence: The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses in Mintos’ due diligence process.
• Debt Collection: EUR 140 million of investor funds are either in debt collection or pending payments.
• Conflicts of Interest: Mintos has shareholder overlaps with many of its lending companies.
• Schedule Extension: Mintos has violated its own T&Cs and introduced measures that disadvantaged its investors.

Mintos Alternatives

In terms of its business model, Mintos is most comparable to P2P marketplaces such as PeerBerry or Income Marketplace. The biggest difference between the marketplaces is that PeerBerry is backed by a large and established non-bank lender from Europe (Aventus Group), which primarily offers its own loans on the marketplace.

Income Marketplace

Income Marketplace is an unregulated P2P marketplace based in Estonia. The platform, which had its operational start in January 2021, markets itself with a range of innovative security features that are designed to provide investors with significantly better protection against problematic lenders. So far, investors have not suffered any losses on Income Marketplace yet. In addition, many of the lenders represented on Income offer an attractive combination of high interest rates and high liquidity. Further information on the Mintos alternative can be found in my Income Marketplace review.

PeerBerry

PeerBerry is also a P2P marketplace, but it works exclusively with partners from the Aventus Group. In terms of investor assets under management, PeerBerry is 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. Further information can be found in my PeerBerry review.

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

Community Feedback

Mintos’ ratings within the P2P lending community are very average, but have recently been trending upwards. In the P2P Community Voting 2024, a score of 3.28 points was achieved out of 211 ratings, which was good enough for 7th place in the end. This has also been Mintos’ best score in the last four years.

In comparison: In 2023, Mintos achieved 2.95 points, in 2022 it was 2.61 points and in 2021 it has been 3.22 points.

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 Mintos Review 2025

Mintos is the market leader in the European P2P lending environment. This status has been achieved through a highly scalable business model with externally connected lenders.

With a favourable economic situation behind them, investors have been able to regularly achieve double-digit returns. However, investors had to pay the price for this rapid growth due to a combination of inadequate due diligence and macroeconomic events.

As a result, more than EUR 140 million are still in the recovery process in 2024. Mintos itself is already expecting a loss of at least EUR 64 million.

Because the overall performance of the Mintos portfolio shows that a diversified approach across multiple lenders does not work, investing in P2P loans is only recommended for advanced investors who are able to evaluate individual lending companies.

Apart from that, asset classes like fractional bonds offer a much more interesting alternative for investors on Mintos.

FAQ Mintos Review