The review is based on my own experience, thoughts, mistakes and successes using the Mintos P2P lending platform.

Mintos is a Latvian P2P investment platform that connects lending companies and people from all over the world that are interested in investing their available money. The company was establishes in 2015 and currently has partnership with 82 lending companies and more than 103’000 investors from 70 countries. Loans worth more than 1’549 million euro’s have been funded since Mintos was establishes. Average amount investment per investor is 4’622 EUR, and approximately 90% of the investors are active users of the lending platform. Mintos has gained a leading position at the forefront of the European market of peer-to-peer lending

In the 2018 more than 55’000 investors joined the platform investing their trust and funds in and on the marketplace.

P2P lending platform is evolving and providing clients new services, in the near future Mintos are going to provide their investors with IBAN (bank) and an option to open a debit card, as well at last they will be introducing a mobile app for Android and Apple users.

Mintos won AltFi’s “People’s choice award” in 2016 and 2017 and I it looks that 2018 will not be an exception. So hurray for them!

Link to my portfolio and how it evolved over time. I am going to update my portfolio every month.

I started seriously investing in Mintos from 20.08.2018 (I had an account open much earlier, however I did not invest anything then), invested funds are steadily growing every month and my returns have been very stable and predictable every month.

My personal net return is 13.01% which is much higher than traditional banks offer in Latvia (from 0.2 % up to 1,5% annually). Most loans in EUR currency for short terms up to 3 month have interest rates from 10% to 14%, for longer terms like 12-72 month the rates are between 5% - 10 %.  The net average return across the platform is 11.69%.

What does it mean buyback guarantee on the Mintos platform – Essentially it is a pledge from the Loan Originator in case the borrower will fail to pay back the loan within 60 days after loan repayment dead line, the loan originator will reimburse you for the invested funds plus interest for the period you invested in the loan and for the 60 days loan originator will pay the overdue interest (please review the list of the Loan originators that pay overdue interest as not all of the originators pay it, you can find the list of the originators further in this post).

The buyback guarantee is not risk free, it only transfers risk the liability to the loan originator, so you don’t have to think about each loan in your portfolio, however you have to worry about the loan originator defaulting. If the loan originator has a profitable business, then you should not worry and be able to profit of this loan originator.

To my opinion buyback guarantee is the assurance that investors are looking for, thus making P2P lending much more attractive then investing in to stock market, as with P2P lending you know what return you will receive annually.

At the time of writing the review there are 228’353 loans on the primary market of which only 221 have no buyback guarantee. Secondary loan market has 199’088 loans of which 2601 have no buyback guarantee.

The process is simple, in the initial sign-up form you need to provide you name, surname, e-mail, phone number and other standard stuff, for you to be able to deposit funds to your account, you will need to go through a verification process using your webcam or phone, where you will have to provide your ID card or passport. When signing up please use my promo code 1YSSJ0 or the affiliate link Mintos as this will provide you a small bonus for your initial investments for the first 90 days.

For investors to use this platform the minimum age is 18 years old, there are few country residents that are forbidden to invest in platform, however most of the world is invited to participate in the P2P lending.

The minimum amount from which you can start investing is 10 EUR, when the funds are available on your investor account you can start investing immediately.

Mintos does not send information about your investments to any of the Tax Agency’s or deduct any taxes.

You can deposit funds in currencies - CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, GEL, KZT, PLN, RUB, SEK, USD.

You are fully responsible for doing your taxes any other obligations in your country.

I always use Transferwise as this is one of the fastest ways to top up my Mintos account, Transferwise have no hidden fees like the banks have. The currency exchange rates are between 0.35 % and 2% if you interested in investing

P.S. Transferwise offer a free debit card, so it is a win-win situation.

Another fast transfer option is Trustly, there is a small fee after the first month of usage.

There is always an option to transfer your funds via bank (SEPA/SWIFT transfer).

However, I recommend Transferwise as the best option.

Mintos provides two-factor authentication, thus you can protect your account details, like personas information, loans and your money more efficiently. When logging in Mintos will send to your registered mobile phone number a verification code, which you will have to enter in the login screen.

Two-factor authentication is to protect your investment account from unauthorized access. If somehow a third party finds out your password, they will not be able to access your account without a verification code that will be provided to your mobile phone number.

There is no charge for this service.

Auto-invest functionality is a great tool for automating your investing strategy, so you don’t have to keep track when there is available funds in your account for investing. When using this feature you will not have to manually do investing, however be informed that the Auto-Invest does not work always perfectly as there are situations, when not all of your accounts available funds are invested in loans. For example your account has 50. Eur available for investing, Auto-invest functionality does its job, but invest in three loans totaling in 43,55 Eur, you are left with available funds 6,45 Eur, you will not be able to invest these funds until you accumulate the investment minimum 10 Eur. So be aware that there may be situations, when not all of your account funds are invested and you are not gaining the fully possible earnings that you could.

I have created 7 auto-invest strategies:

Loans with a higher interest rate are set with a higher priority, and loans with a lower interest are set with a lower priority, however I have noticed that auto-invest does not work as it should, for example I have set to invest in loans with a higher rate 13% (loans are available on the loan list), however auto-invest uses the investing scenario with a lover rate of 12%, so keep in mind that the system has it’s flaws as well. I advise you to log in to your account once a day preferably in the morning and invest your available funds manually as this way you will maximize your income. Unfortunately, the auto-invest tool does not favor highest interest loans. If you set min. interest rate to 12% and 15% loans are available you could get 12, 13, 14 or 15% interest loans.

I have set up my auto-invest settings, to invest only in loans that are with Mintos rating “A” to “B-”, currency is only EUR (you can invest in other currencies as well - CZK, DKK, GBP, GEL, KZT, MXN, PLN, RON, RUB, SEK, USD), all loans have buyback guarantee, Interest income on delayed payments(If the loan repayment is pass the deadline you will receive interest for the delayed days as well) – Yes, Penalty Income – if there is a “No” on ‘Interest income on delayed payments’, then I review this option as well, if the loan originator has filled this with an amount, I will invest with this loan originator, Grace period not more than 5 days, I do not invest in African country loan originators, I invest in all available loan types - LOAN TYPES, AGRICULTURAL LOANS,BUSSINES LOANS, CAR LOANS, INVOICING FINANCING, MORTGAGE LKOANS, PAWNBROKING LOANS, PERSONAL LOANS, SHORT-TERM LOANS. Once a month I review the settings and if necessary I update them with the new loan originators, to make sure I get the best possible interest rates.

List of all the available loan originators.

Mintos has a huge secondary market where you can try to make some extra profit by selling your primary investments with a mark-up or buy loans with a discount, thus making some extra income.

If you wish to sell your investments until it has reached its maturity you can do it in the secondary market, but remember that your investment may not be interesting to investors if you do not give a small discount, as investors are mostly interested in loans with discount, unless you have been able to get some high interest loans, those might be able to score you even a nice premium.

As this is the first P2P lending platform I started to invest I am pleased with the wide range of investment tools and other services, like auto-invest, money depositing with Transferwise, diversification options, support is really great and they help on all the questions/issues I have. If you are using only the Auto-invest function, then you will need less then 30 min a month to earn your 12-14% on your invested funds.

Mintos is rapidly developing with new services, so I think we will hear many interesting and loud announcements from them in the near future.

Bonus: Extra 1% funds for your deposits

If you are ready to start your investment journey here is a link that will give you an exclusive 1% on all investments you make within the first 90 days from your registration if you sign up through one of my Mintos links. You will not receive this bonus if you sign up directly on Mintos.

If there are any additional questions concerning the platform you may contact me at e-mail [email protected] and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you can share your opinion and experience with the platform as well as I would like to hear success stories as by working together we would be able to achieve our goals faster.

Are you happy with the returns, are there any better platforms for investing, how do you diversify your investments, what other platforms/investments give this high return rates? 

If my Mintos review has been useful please share it with your friends who are interested in investing as well.