Mintos Review (2024): 14.89% return after 3+ years

Why this review?

It’s been over 3 years since I deposited my first money on the Mintos platform. A lot has happened since that time: a pandemic, wars and bankruptcies of various lending companies on Mintos. I decided to summarize my experience in one place, mix it with market analysis and share my review about the Mintos platform. So that others can benefit when choosing investment platform.

Before we dive into my analysis of experiences, please remember that I am not an investment advisor. I present my opinion here only as an investor.

What is Mintos?

Mintos is a Latvian company specializing in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. Peer-to-peer loans are an alternative to the classic bank-borrower arrangement. In the P2P model, the cash for the loan comes directly from the individual investor, without the intermediation of a bank.

In 2022, Mintos launched a new way of investing – using Notes, which are regulated financial instruments. Each set of Notes has an international ISIN number.

Important thing is the compensation in accordance with Directive 97/9/EC that an investor can apply for under the scheme is 90% of his net loss, up to a maximum amount of EUR 20,000. This applies in case where Mintos makes an administrative mistake or declares bancrupcy.

Mintos specializes in intermediary between investors (people with cash – you) and companies offering credit services. It does not offer loans directly to end customers. This allows us to choose where to invest between companies specializing in different industries (mortgage loans, factoring, car loans etc.), different currencies and different countries. This gives you a lot of space to diversify your investments.

Mintos regularly win AltFi’s “People’s choice award” since 2016 and “Alternative finance platform of the year” in 2019.

Some statistics

• 538,000 – users from 62 countries
• 11.98% – current average interest rate
• €9.7 billion – total investment
  • including €408 million – amount currently in investment
• 62 – the number of lending companies from 33 countries providing loans on Mintos.
• CZK, EUR, GBP, KZT, PLN, SEK, MXN – supported currencies.

How much can you earn?

It depends on what strategy you choose, conservative or risky. The profit from the platform is strongly related to the length of the loan and the currency in which you want to invest.

My personal profit is described in the experience paragraph. Investments have interest rates ranging from 5% to 21%, which is higher than national bonds or bank deposits. The average return with the standard strategy is 11.5%.

Which strategy should I choose?

Mintos provides several predefined strategies that automate the selection of lending companies.

The first three are provided by the Mintos and I recommend starting your adventure with them. Their main distinguishing feature is the ability to quickly withdraw funds even if the loan is still in the repayment process.

The last one is your own custom strategy, in which you can build it base on parameters such as:

• A specific company
• Country
• Mintos Score Risk (more on this in a moment)
• Type of loan (what the money is used for, e.g. car loan)
• Minimum interest rate
• Loan duration
• Primary / Secondary market (enabling the purchase of loans from other investors who want to liquidate assets faster)

Is Mintos safe? About risk and guarantee

Lending companies on the Mintos platform offer a 60-day loan repurchase guarantee in case the borrower has problems with repayment.

In other words, if the debtor cannot repay the loan, the lending company provides a buyout guarantee. This guarantee also covers accrued interest. However, let’s not forget that the buyout only works when the intermediary company is in a good financial situation.

Alternatively, the loan is sold on the secondary market.

What if the intermediary company goes bankrupt?

P2P lending is still a dynamically developing industry where there is a risk of insolvency of lending companies. On the other hand, it is unlikely that all companies will experience liquidity problems at the same time. That is why it is so important for companies to diversify their strategy (standard conservative strategy automatically include this).

In 2020, during the beginning of the pandemic, many lending companies had problems with loan repayment. Based on these experiences, Mintos introduced additional methods to verify companies and their financial liquidity. You can read more information about the risk of investing here. 

From the beginning (2020), the only company in my portfolio that had repayment problems was a Russian lending company. Due to the war in Ukraine, she was deprived of the ability to transfer money from Russia overnight.

How to verify lending companies?

For this purpose, Mintos* introduced the Mintos Risk Score. This is a numerical indicator that represents the risk level of a given investment opportunity. It is expressed on a scale from 10 (low risk) to 1 (high risk).

The indicator is influenced by factors such as:

• Loan portfolio performance
• Loan servicer efficiency
• Buyback strength
• Cooperation structure

The individual components are very extensive, a detailed description can be found at this link .

How to start investing?

Mintos* offers several automated investing strategies and the ability to configure your own custom one.

I recommend starting by choosing a standard strategy (e.g. conservative). Observe the results for several months while learning the mechanisms of the platform itself. In the next stage, you can start building your custom strategy and even try investing in other currencies.

How to deposit money?

Once you have set up a Mintos* account, you can easily deposit money using a bank transfer. You can find your IBAN account with your individual user number after logging in to the system.

How long will you wait for the transfer? Usually few hours.

How much is it cost? If you make a transfer from Revolut*, you pay nothing.

How to withdraw funds?

The withdrawal form is available on the platform. Important note, you can only withdraw to the accounts from which you deposited funds.

How long will you wait for the transfer? Usually 1-2 business days.

My experience with Mintos*

My profits

👉 Results from 2024-01-19

• The current investment amount is about 13k EUR.
• Return over the last 12 months (ROI) is 14.89%
  • And this includes cost of withholding tax (5%)
• The total profit from December 2020 is €2,322

Why do I get a return higher than the standard 11.5%? Over the last 12 months, many companies repaid their overdue loans. And while waiting for repayment, Mintos adds an extra % “penalty” for the lending companies. In the result, it gives me extra % to my profit.

You can find the latest updates to my portfolio at this link.

My strategy

• Mintos Risk Score 7 and above
• High-risk countries excluded (e.g. Russia)
• Diversification: Dynamic
• Period from 0 to 24 months
• Amount from 50 to €300
• Minimum interest rate set depending on the interest rate report. You can find it on the custom strategy form:

Summary: Why invest in Mintos?

1. One of the largest players in the P2P lending market
2. Regulated Financial Instruments – Notes
3. The investing process is fully automatic
4. Great opportunities for diversification into various currencies, countries and lending companies
5. Dynamic loan return mechanism based on supply-demand principles (reaching up to 18% y/y)
6. Possibility to sell loans faster on the Secondary market
7. Mobile application

What don’t I like?

1. Long delays in repayments – although they pay off in the end.
   Update 2024: the last year shows that delays are becoming less often. Apparently, Mintos is trying to reduce this infamous number.
2. Frequent changes to the Mintos Risk Score for lending companies

Bonus €50+1%

If my review was helpful and you are interested in the Mintos platform, I would be grateful if you registered using this link. When you invest €1,000 you will receive €50 immediately and 1% of the amount 90 days after opening the account.