Five things Mintos gets right
One of Europe's biggest loan marketplaces is also one of the few that is a licensed investment firm. Here is what that, and a few other choices, do for investors.
Par Neven ScagnoliAuthor & EditorMintos is where many people start with P2P lending, and there are good reasons for that beyond its size. Run by AS Mintos Marketplace in Riga, it reported 664,000 registered users and €795 million under management at the end of 2025. Here are five things it does better than most of the market — and one thing to keep in mind.
1. It is a licensed investment firm
Mintos holds a MiFID investment firm licence (No. 06.06.08.719/534, dated 17 August 2021) and is supervised by Latvijas Banka, the Latvian central bank. Most loan platforms in Europe have no licence at all, or only a crowdfunding licence. An investment firm licence brings conduct rules, capital requirements and ongoing supervision.
2. Your money is kept separate
Under that licence, investors' cash and financial instruments must be held separately from Mintos' own assets, in safeguarding accounts at EU-licensed banks and qualifying money market funds. If the company behind the platform ran into trouble, your holdings are not part of its balance sheet.
3. There is an investor compensation scheme
Mintos is a member of the Latvian investor compensation scheme. If Mintos itself failed and could not return your cash or instruments, retail investors can claim up to €20,000. That is protection very few P2P platforms can offer.
4. It publishes its bad years too
Mintos publishes a historical net return — interest minus losses — for every year back to 2015. That includes 2020 (4.3%), 2022 (−1.2%) and the strong recoveries in 2023 (10.4%) and 2024 (9.3%). Publishing the losses alongside the gains is exactly the kind of transparency investors should expect, and it lets you judge the platform on real outcomes rather than headline rates. The group's annual reports are audited by KPMG Baltics.
5. It is easy to run
Identity checks run through Veriff and are, Mintos says, usually completed within a few minutes. After that, Core Loans needs only a target amount: Mintos invests, reinvests repayments and caps any single lending company at 15% of the portfolio. For people who want control, Custom Loans offers more than 20 filters, and there is a secondary market for selling early (0.85% fee per sale). The app runs on iOS and Android.
Worth knowing
The licence and the compensation scheme protect you against Mintos losing your assets — not against loans going bad. Buybacks come from the lending companies themselves, and in 2026 several of them (Nera Capital, Fintech Finance, Biznes Zaim) ran into trouble. These are not bank deposits. Spread your money, and read our full Mintos review for the details, fees and risks.
