Mintos

Mintos

Mintos is a peer-to-peer lending company that connects investors to lenders of various loan issuers. Mintos was the first P2P Lending platform in Latvia and offers the opportunity to invest in loans from multiple countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Poland) as well as in loans of a different nature (mortgage loans, car loan guarantees, loans to small businesses and personal loans). Mintos is open to investors from all over Europe. In June 2019, the platform had reached a quota of over 150,000 investors, coming from more than 70 nations, who have financed loans worth over 1.5 billion euros. The minimum investment starts at € 10.

History

The Mintos team started developing the idea in mid-2014 and launched the platform in January 2015. During the first week, over € 250,000 in guaranteed loans were invested in Mintos.

The number of investors, within the space of 12 months, rose from 2,000 to more than 12,000, thus creating a solid base, higher than that of more consolidated platforms. The growth of Mintos has also favored the development of the sector itself: for many investors, the Mintos platform was the first experience with social lending.

In March 2015, Mintos began offering investors the opportunity to invest in vehicle-backed loans issued and managed by Mogo in Estonia.

In May 2015, Mintos introduced a buyback guarantee for investors, the first ever in the sector. The buyback guarantee implies that, in the event of loan default for more than 60 days, the loan itself is repurchased by the investor at the price of the capital in addition to the accrued interest: consequently, the investor does not assume the risk of insolvency, avoiding therefore, also the long credit recovery procedures.

In May 2015, Mintos began offering car-backed loans in Lithuania, offered to customers in collaboration with Mogo, the market leader in auto-guaranteed loans in the region.

In June 2015, Mintos founded the Crowdfunding Association of Latvia.

In July 2015, Capitalia joins Mintos. The loans issued by Capitalia thus become available on Mintos and an investor can invest in small and medium-sized companies in Latvia and Lithuania.

In September 2015, Creamfinance joins Mintos. Therefore, unsecured short-term loans become available on the platform, issued by Creamfinance in Georgia through the CreditON brand. Through its partnership with Creamfinance , the social lending platform Mintos has expanded its investment opportunities, offering investors the opportunity to invest in short-term unsecured loans from Georgia.

Since the beginning of 2016, Mintos has introduced 14 new broadcasters, from countries such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

In 2016, Mintos entered into agreements with 3 Lithuanian broadcasters. The first was DEBIFO, which offers invoicing services to small and medium-sized companies, with the same invoices that act as a guarantee. The other two are Mano Unija, which focuses on corporate loans, and Kredito Garantas, which publishes private loans on Mintos.

Similarly, Mintos began collaborating with 3 Latvian issuers in 2016. The first, Banknote, offers personalized loans, international bank transfers, as well as loans secured by real estate. The second, WestKredit, offers loans to businesses and individuals, secured by real estate. The third is AgroCredit which issues loans to farmers.

Subsequently, again in 2016, Mintos added a Czech broadcaster called ACEMA, offering investors greater opportunities also from a geographical point of view. The Polish broadcaster Aforti Finance has also joined the platform: it offers loans to small-medium enterprises in Poland. Since September 2016, Aventus Group has joined Mintos. Aventus Group issues short-term loans in the Czech Republic, Georgia, Latvia and Poland.

In early 2016, Mintos also announced that it had completed a round of financing, which attracted 2 million euros from Skillion Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Riga. In June 2019, more than 4 years since its opening to the public, Mintos has seen investor investments of over 2.5 billion euros.

Activity

Business model

Mintos is a platform, consisting of a loan market, which unites investors and lenders, allowing various loan issuers to use a social lending model to finance the loans themselves. Previously, loan issuers created their own platforms: now Mintos offers a single platform to these non-bank issuers that aim to sell loans. This means that issuers avoid investing in creating and maintaining their own platforms. By connecting to the Mintos platform, issuers connect directly to investors, thus being able to focus more on their main activity, the issuance of loans.

In other words, following what was stated by Martins Sulte, CEO of Mintos, this platform resembles, as a general concept, Amazon, where retailers are put in contact with customers. In the case of Mintos, retailers are the issuers of the loans, while the final customers are the investors.

Investors

There are several types of loans available on Mintos: loans to farmers, advance invoices, mortgage loans, car-guaranteed loans, loans to small businesses and unsecured loans.

Mintos is used by investors from more than 50 countries around the world, including Italy, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Sweden, Finland; however, the most active investors come from Germany, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The total number of investors, in June 2019, is 150,696.

Yield for investors

At the moment, the average annual net return for investors on Mintos is between 11% and 13%, but may vary depending on the different opportunities for creating your investment portfolio.

Acknowledgments

Mintos won the title of best startup in the Rietumu FinTech Challenge organized by TechHub Riga and Rietumu banka in 2015.

Mintos finished second in the The One to Watch award presented by AltFi Awards 2015 .

At the end of 2015, Mintos was selected among the possible winners of the European FinTech Award 2016.

Other activities

Mintos was one of the sponsors of the most important social lending conference, in which it also participated: "LendIt Europe 2015". At "LendIt Europe 2016" Mintos took part as an exhibitor.

Quarterly webinars for investors, organized by Mintos, ensure investor involvement and support the development of the platform. The publicly available balance sheet data, as well as financial information on each of the loan issuers, help to ensure a higher level of transparency and develop investor confidence.

Mintos

This article "Mintos" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Mintos. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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