Afranga Review 2026: A Real Licence, One Lending Group

Afranga is a Sofia-based crowdlending platform run by AFRANGA EOOD, a licensed European crowdfunding service provider. Investors lend money to non-bank lending companies — mostly Bulgarian consumer lenders and one car-leasing firm — and receive monthly interest. The homepage advertises returns of "up to 16%", a €10 minimum and "€100+M invested by 5000+ investors".

The short answer to whether it is worth a look: Afranga has something most platforms at this rate level do not — a real EU licence, verifiable on regulators' own lists. What it does not have is a diversified loan book. Most of the money on the platform goes to Stikcredit and two companies built by the same team, so the licence protects the plumbing, not the credit.

Afranga started in 2021 as the funding channel of the lender Stikcredit, moved to a separate licensed company in 2023, and was relaunched on afranga.com under the ECSP rules in March 2025. The live figures and our safety score are on the Afranga platform page; for how we weigh licences against credit risk, see our methodology.

Since the 2025 relaunch, Afranga works as a crowdfunding platform under Regulation (EU) 2020/1503. That changes what you own compared with the older Stikcredit platform.

What you actually own

You enter a loan agreement directly with the lending company (Afranga calls it the loan originator or project owner). Afranga describes these as direct loans, not purchases of claims against individual consumers. Your return depends on that lending company repaying you. The individual consumer loans in its book are its business, not yours.

Two ways to invest

• Marketplace: you pick individual loans to lending companies. Each comes with a Key Investment Information Sheet (KIIS), as the ECSP regulation requires. Marketplace loans run to maturity.
• SaveSmart: launched on 19 February 2026, a fixed-term product of 3, 6 or 12 months where the platform places the money. At launch it lent exclusively to Stikcredit. Principal is repaid at maturity, which can slip by up to one calendar month, and interest is paid monthly. Rates are shown before you invest and change over time.

In June 2026 Afranga added its first real estate loan: a 12-month, 9% loan secured on residential land in Sofia at a 66% loan-to-value ratio. It is a single project and too new to judge.

Where the money sits

Deposits go into an individual payment account in your name at Lemonway, a French payment institution licensed by the ACPR under number 16568. Afranga is a registered agent of Lemonway and does not hold client money itself.

The platform is operated by AFRANGA EOOD, EIK 206337510, a single-member limited company registered in Sofia on 29 December 2020 with fully paid capital of €139,071.

Ownership

The Bulgarian Commercial Register (as mirrored by papagal.bg) lists Svetlin Nikolov Sabev as sole owner and manager. The company started with three equal partners and became a single-member company on 17 February 2023, when Sabev became sole owner. Rumen Krastev Levski was added as procurator in March 2025. Stikcredit's own December 2023 announcement said the same: "The sole owner of Afranga eood is Svetlin Sabev."

This matters because the relationship to Stikcredit is personal, not corporate. Afranga is not a subsidiary of Stik-Credit AD. But Sabev sits on Stik-Credit's board of directors, according to Stik-Credit's 2024 annual report, and was previously its operations lead. Stik-Credit itself is owned by Stefan Topuzakov (47%), Kristiyan Kostadinov (47%) and Ivaylo Todorov (6%).

Why that is a related-party structure

Afranga's own originator page describes Lendivo as "backed by a team of experienced professionals who are behind the success of Stikcredit" and Tiberus as "built by the team behind Stik Credit, Lendivo, and other successful financial services companies". So the platform operator's owner sits on the board of its largest borrower, and two further borrowers come from the same team. The other three originators — Credirect (part of MV Finance), Lev Credit and the Czech lender Swiss Funds — are not described as connected.

Afranga accepts private investors who are EU/EEA citizens or permanent residents and of legal age, and legal entities established in the EU/EEA or Switzerland.

1. 1Register on afranga.com with your email address and set up two-factor authentication (an authenticator app or SMS).
2. 2Verify your identity. Afranga uses an automated identity check.
3. 3Complete the appropriateness assessment that the ECSP regulation requires. Investors classed as non-sophisticated see risk warnings and get a four-day reflection period on each investment.
4. 4Provide proof that the bank account you will withdraw to is in your name. Afranga asks for this before your first withdrawal.
5. 5Transfer euros from your own bank account to your Lemonway account, then choose loans on the Marketplace or a SaveSmart term.

If you had an account on the old stikcredit.eu platform, it does not carry over: those balances were not transferred, old loans repay on their original schedules, and you need a new afranga.com account.

Before depositing, read the originator section below and decide how much you are willing to have exposed to one Bulgarian lending group.

Opening an Afranga account is quick: verification is automated and, for private investors, usually done within minutes, and investing works either loan by loan from €10 or through a fixed-term SaveSmart product.

Signing up

Verification runs through Lemonway, the payment institution that also holds your money:

1. 1Fill in a short form with personal, tax and financial details.
2. 2Scan or photograph your ID card or passport.
3. 3Take a short live selfie with your phone or webcam.

Afranga says the check for individuals is fully automated and typically finished within a few minutes; company accounts usually take one to two business days.

Deposits

You fund the account by euro bank transfer, quoting the unique reference shown in your account exactly so the money is matched to you. Afranga says most transfers are credited within one to two business days of reaching Lemonway. Bank transfer is the only deposit method.

Investing

On the Marketplace you add funds, filter the loan list and enter the amount you want in each loan, from €10. There is no auto-invest on the Marketplace yet — Afranga's help centre lists an automated tool as coming soon — so for a hands-off option, SaveSmart lets you pick a term and leaves the placing to the platform.

Security, documents and support

• Two-factor login with an authenticator app or a text-message code.
• Annual tax statement in the account, broken down by lender and country.
• Support by email, through a Telegram chat (@afrangachat) and by phone, with local numbers for Bulgaria, Germany/Austria, France and Spain, plus an online help centre.

There is no Afranga app in the App Store or Google Play (checked 22 September 2026); the platform is used through its website.

Deposits are by bank transfer in euros from an account in your own name. Afranga says a transfer arrives instantly or within 1–2 working days, and charges no deposit fee. Money waits in your Lemonway account until you invest it.

Withdrawals of uninvested cash go back to your verified bank account. Afranga requires proof of account ownership before the first withdrawal. Lemonway does not charge for opening or maintaining the account. In August 2025 Afranga said SEPA Instant transfers were "coming soon"; we could not confirm whether they are live.

The important limit is that only uninvested cash can be withdrawn. Marketplace loans run to maturity unless you can sell them (see the liquidity section), and SaveSmart money is locked for the chosen term except for the partial early-withdrawal option.

Afranga's headline number is "up to 16% annually" on the homepage. That is a maximum, not an average, and it is not what most loans pay.

Afranga's own originator page gives average returns by lender:

• Lendivo: 11.58%
• Tiberus: 10.82%
• Stikcredit: 10.67%
• Swiss Funds: 10.49%
• Credirect: 9.86%
• Lev Credit: 8.97%

SaveSmart is advertised at an average of 8–10% a year, and the new real estate loan pays 9%. Temporary cashback offers — a September 2026 SaveSmart promotion, for example — can lift the rate on individual investments for a while.

Afranga does not publish a realised net return for investors, and its statistics page does not show a loss rate. Independent investors who publish their own portfolios report results in the low-to-mid teens, but those are single portfolios, not platform data. Afranga says investors have not lost capital through an originator default so far. That is true of most young platforms until the first bad year.

Two things always cut what you keep: withholding tax in the borrower's country, deducted before interest reaches your account, and cash waiting uninvested. A double-digit rate here is the price of lending to high-cost consumer lenders, not a feature of the platform; our risks page explains why.

Afranga states 0% fees for investors, and on the marketplace that appears to hold:

• Account, deposits and investing: no Afranga fee.
• Lemonway account: no opening or maintenance fee.
• SaveSmart early withdrawal: 1% of the amount withdrawn.
• Bank charges: any fee your own bank charges for transfers is yours.

The general terms (version 2.0, effective 27 August 2026) refer to a separate Afranga tariff and say secondary market transactions may incur charges. We could not find a published tariff with any secondary market fee, and independent reviews report none. Check the tariff before your first sale.

Afranga earns its money from the lending companies, not from you. That is normal for this model, but it means the platform's income grows with the volume its related originators borrow.

Treat Afranga as a hold-to-maturity investment with a few limited exits.

1. 1SaveSmart early withdrawal. You can take out up to 30% of your SaveSmart investment at any time, capped at €5,000, for a 1% fee. If 30% is less than €100, you can still withdraw up to €100. The other 70% stays until maturity.
2. 2Secondary market (bulletin board). The general terms that took effect on 27 August 2026 add a bulletin board where investors can transfer loans to each other at 85% to 115% of outstanding nominal value, with a €100 minimum. Afranga provides administrative support only; it does not match buyers and sellers. Independent reviewers report the feature went live that day. Afranga's help centre still described the secondary market as "not yet available" when we checked, so the platform's own pages are behind.
3. 3Wait for maturity. Marketplace loans cannot be withdrawn early any other way.

There is no auto-invest. It existed on the old Stikcredit platform, and Afranga listed it as an upcoming feature in May 2025, but it has not returned since the relaunch.

A bulletin board only works when other investors want to buy. In a stress event involving the Stikcredit group, which is most of the book, you should expect buyers to disappear exactly when you want to sell.

Afranga has no buyback obligation. This is a deliberate change from the old Stikcredit platform. Under the ECSP model you lend directly to the lending company, and the general terms state that neither Afranga nor any assignor "warrants the solvency of the Project Owner or the recoverability of the assigned Loan".

In practice your credit exposure is to the lending company as a whole. If Stikcredit repays, you are paid, whatever happens to its individual consumer borrowers. If Stikcredit cannot repay, there is no third party to step in.

When Stikcredit announced the licence in December 2023, it said new loans would be secured "by a pledge on a portfolio of performing loans". We could not confirm from the current terms whether each marketplace loan still carries such a pledge, so check the KIIS for each loan. The newer products are clearer: Tiberus loans are backed by vehicles financed at up to 70% loan-to-value, and the real estate loan is secured on land at 66% loan-to-value.

A pledge or asset backing helps in a recovery. It does not make the lender any less likely to fail, and a recovery through Bulgarian courts would take time.

AFRANGA EOOD is a licensed European crowdfunding service provider. Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission granted the licence by Decision 863-ДУКФ of 12 September 2023; the licence number is 0001/18.09.2023. It covers facilitating the granting of loans. The licence is verifiable outside Afranga's own website: the French AMF lists AFRANGA EOOD on its crowdfunding white list with a passport to France from 9 May 2025, and Afranga appears on lists compiled from ESMA's crowdfunding register.

What the licence gives you

• Client money must be held with a licensed payment provider — here Lemonway — not on Afranga's balance sheet.
• Each loan comes with a standardised Key Investment Information Sheet.
• Non-sophisticated investors get an entry knowledge test and a four-day reflection period.
• Afranga must report annually to the FSC and meet the regulation's conduct and prudential rules.

What it does not give you

There is no compensation scheme. Afranga's homepage and general terms both say investments are not covered by the deposit guarantee scheme or the investor compensation scheme in Bulgaria. These are not bank deposits. The licence does not assess or stand behind the lending companies, and it does not protect you if Stikcredit or any other originator stops paying. The FSC supervises how Afranga runs a platform, not whether its borrowers are creditworthy.

We could not find published financial statements for AFRANGA EOOD itself. For a platform where one lender dominates, the more useful accounts are Stik-Credit's, and those are available: Afranga links to the 2024 annual report of Stik-Credit AD, audited by Zaharinova Nexia with an unqualified opinion.

The 2024 figures:

• Interest and fee income: BGN 33.3 million (2023: BGN 24.7 million)
• Net profit: BGN 6.8 million (2023: BGN 5.8 million)
• Total assets: BGN 55.4 million; equity: BGN 29.9 million
• Loan impairment: BGN 9.9 million (2023: BGN 7.1 million)
• Borrowings: BGN 22.5 million, with nearly all interest expense paid to lending platforms
• Receivables from related parties: BGN 10.1 million (BGN 7.6 million non-current)

Stik-Credit is profitable and well capitalised on paper, with equity above half of total assets. Two things temper that. Impairments are large next to income, as they usually are in high-cost consumer lending. And a sum equal to about a third of its equity is lent to related parties, so part of the capital buffer sits with the same circle of companies you are already exposed to through Lendivo and Tiberus.

On track record, Afranga's history is short and interrupted: Stikcredit's platform from 2021, the licence in 2023, the move to afranga.com in March 2025 with a new legal structure and without auto-invest, SaveSmart in February 2026 and a secondary market in August 2026. The platform's own statistics start from that relaunch.

Afranga's numbers do not agree with each other, and the difference is worth understanding.

The homepage claims €100M+ invested. The statistics page, calculated daily, showed €43,051,653 invested and €3,497,058 interest paid on 21 September 2026. The larger figure appears to include the predecessor Stikcredit platform; Afranga does not say so on the homepage. Similarly, the homepage says 5,000+ investors, while independent trackers report around 7,000.

The originator page also shows how the book is spread. The invested amounts it lists are:

• Stikcredit: €5.0 million
• Lendivo: €4.4 million
• Tiberus: €2.9 million
• Lev Credit: €294,700
• Swiss Funds: €148,400
• Credirect: €113,900

On those figures, Stikcredit, Lendivo and Tiberus account for roughly 95% of the money invested. SaveSmart, the hands-off product, lent only to Stikcredit at launch. Six originators on paper therefore work more like one group with a small independent fringe. If you want diversification, you would have to overweight Credirect, Lev Credit and Swiss Funds deliberately, and their supply is small.

1. 1Group concentration. Stikcredit, Lendivo and Tiberus share a founding team, and Afranga's owner sits on Stikcredit's board. Trouble in that group would hit most of the book at once.
2. 2Lending company default. You lend to the lending company directly, with no buyback and no guarantor. If it cannot pay, you depend on recovery.
3. 3Related-party lending inside the originator. Stik-Credit's audited accounts show BGN 10.1 million owed by related parties at the end of 2024.
4. 4Liquidity. Marketplace loans run to maturity, the bulletin board is new and depends on other buyers, and SaveSmart allows only a partial early exit.
5. 5Short record under the current structure. The licensed platform has operated since March 2025, which does not include a recession or a Bulgarian regulatory shock.
6. 6Regulatory risk in consumer lending. Bulgarian rules on consumer credit costs can change and squeeze lenders' margins.
7. 7Inconsistent disclosure. The homepage's €100M+ claim and the €43 million statistics figure describe different things, and parts of the help centre are out of date.

Your capital is at risk, and this is not a bank deposit. See how Afranga compares with an unlicensed peer in Esketit vs Afranga.

This is general information, not tax advice.

Interest earned through Afranga is subject to withholding tax in the borrower's country, deducted before the interest reaches your account. The rate is shown on each loan's details page; for Bulgarian originators Afranga's own tax statement example shows 10%. Afranga says the withholding cannot be reduced at source, because the borrowing company does not have the personal information needed to apply a tax treaty rate. Any relief has to be claimed afterwards through your own tax authority.

Afranga issues an annual tax statement. The 2025 statement, released on 19 February 2026, lists income by originator and borrower country, with gross interest, the withholding rate, the amount withheld and net income, plus bonuses and secondary market gains or losses.

In most countries you still declare the interest at home, and you may be able to credit the Bulgarian tax withheld against your domestic liability. The rules depend on your country of residence, so speak to a tax adviser before you file.