In this post I will discuss Mintos as an investment platform, I have been using Mintos for the past 2 years and managed to make some profits although I’m not a millionaire, using Mintos has been quite a good experience overall. In this Mintos review, I will highlight the reasons why I like it as a platform.
🔑Which are the main Features in Mintos?
Mintos is a peer-to-peer lending platform based in Latvia in Europe. Currently, Mintos has four offices based in Riga, Vilnius, Berlin, and Warsaw. Mintos started its operations in 2015 and experienced fast growth and currently has over 270,000 investors with about 5000 000 000 euros invested.
Its rapid growth happened by getting a lot of things right and becoming popular with most financial bloggers, personally I believe this was due to its ease of use and transparency.
Although its still relatively early as a platform, Mintos has made some incredible strives to be proud of and this was the reason for its popularity.
With an average interest rate of 12.10% and offering interest on loans of 15% up to 26% with an average investment of €4,128, Mintos made it as the only double award winner at the annual AltFi awards held in 2019.
There is no doubt that Mintos is a big P2P platform, holding approximately half of the European P2P market. The feature that makes mintos so popular as an investment platform is the user-friendliness and simple ease of use.
Transfer of money to the platform is super simple and investing is available at a click.
Another likable feature is the fact that Mintos has all its team members Linkedin profiles directly available on the site and various YouTube videos with their CEO, just enhances the feeling of transparency and safety of the platform.
Another two important point to look out for is the fact that Mintos is a company that is running on a profit and in line regulated with EU law.
The company also supports 10 languages via its multilingual support team, with the website available in 6 languages and loans available in 12 different currencies.
How Does Mintos Work?
Mintos is a platform that allows loan originators to place part of their loan on the platform for investors to invest in, while the majority of the loan is already made available from the loan originator company.
Each company and loan originator gets rated depending on the research outcomes that the Mintos team does looking at various factors. Mintos also provides various documentation that is easy to access with regards to the loan originators.
Another great feature on Mintos is that most loan originators must put their part into the investment by providing a buyback-guarantee to the investor.
This means if there is a default on a loan the loan originator must buy back the invested money and pay the investor back,
This risk associated with investing of course is that the loan originator goes bust and fails. That is the one of the main risks, however its relatively small, and prior to investing its important to look at the ratings and not just at the returns. Going very high risk like 15% – 20% on loan rating loan originators is not such a great idea, but of course this is common sense when investing your funds.
What are the costs when using Mintos?
No there are no direct costs using Mintos, Mintos creates a platform for person to person investing, the profit made must be payed back to the investor and taxes on your home country applied on the total profits.
Mintos allows both deposits in either Euro or USD with a 1% charge for currency conversions. Loans on Mintos have no minimum level, so you can start investing from 10 euros. I started investing when i was a broke medical student.
Investing on Mintos?
The best thing about investing is that everyone can invest! If you know how to buy and sell stuff or go grocery shopping that you can invest. Mintos makes it simple.
Another advantage is that wherever you live you can easily invest in a Loan. Although investments are based on EU legislation and protected under EU law investing with Mintos can be done from anywhere, even if you are living in Japan, Thailand or Singapore.
Mintos is open to both private and corporate investors. So this is not restricted to personal investment plans.
What Can You Invest in?
On the platform you can invest in various investor loans, these loans can be about anything such as:
- Mortgage Loans
- personal loans
- Business Loans
- Short-term Loans
- car loans
Basically, Mintos allows a buy now and pay later system, where the investor can buy the item now and pay later by installments over several months.
Mintos Strategies
Mintos as of 2020 has provided three main investment strategies for investment, These include:
- Diversified strategy
- Conservative
- High Yield Strategies
All investments come with a risk of losing money, basically diversification is a way of reducing your exposure to the risk associated with any one investment.
DIVERSIFIED
Diversification allows you to spread your investment over multiple investments from ratings A+ to C-. Having several investments on different assets, currencies, maturities helps reduce risk.
Diversification allows you to invest your money in various loans and not place all your investments into one investment option.
To quote billionaire investment tycoon, Warren Buffet: “Diversification is protection against ignorance.” In other words, none of us have the ability to see into the future and know the upcoming value of their investments for certain, therefore diversification is your safety-net against the unforeseen”.
CONSERVATIVE
A conservative strategy invests in loans from companies that offer the best portfolio quality. Usually, it allows investing in loans which have a rating of A+ to B-. The investment strategy here aims at reducing risk with maximum exposure of 15% and with a buyback guarantee.
HIGH-YIELD
As can be concluded from this strategy, a high-yield strategy invests in loans offering a high return. this investment strategy invests in loans that have high returns and ratings from A+ to C-.
The investment also allows a buyback guarantee and a 15% maximum exposure.
Mintos strategies are a fully automated ways of investing. To get started, you just select the amount you want to invest. You’ll get a portfolio of loans that is diversified according to each strategy’s priorities. Your exact portfolio mix automatically adjusts to the market.
Using Custom Strategies
Auto-investing a one of the best strategies that will help you save time when investing on the platform. Instead of manually investing in various loans (which can be time-consuming) Setting up and auto-investment strategy can be a great way towards passive income, while keeping in mind the risks.
When setting up an auto-invest strategy its therefore important to test the waters with small investments and learn how the platform works. Once you get a hand on the system, you can adjust the settings in the auto-invest and about loan originator problems (like the loan originator going bankrupt).
With the introduction of risk rating for the loan originators A to C you can easily have an idea of the risk involved when selecting a loan. What you want is setting up loans with compounding interest and having a safety buyback gu
What is the Secondary Market?
Mintos was one of the first platforms in Europe to introduce a secondary market to its investors. The secondary market allows investors to sell loans ahead of the maturity date.
Many investors have been able to sell millions worth of loans in just a few days on the secondary market.
Here the the seller of the loan places his loan on the secondary market for sale, in a matter of days the loan could be sold offering easy liquidity for the investors.
Selling loans on the platform accounts to a small fee of 0.85% only if you are selling and not buying.
Mintos Loan Originators Rating system
When you start investing on Mintos, the loan companies you invest In are assigned a rating level which is either A to C.
The ratings are given to a loan originator depending on various factors such as the Company profile, the management strategy used, the operational environment and of course the financial profile.
The Mintos rating ultimate goal is to classify a company depending upon risk of transferring a received payment to a borrower or meeting the contract obligations.
The rating is driven by the initial process and ongoing monitoring during the financial transaction on going and the rating may increase or decrease. Choosing a B or A company is the best and safest way of investing in a loan.
Usually, high rating companies will give a lower percentage return (7-11%) however they are safer and usually provide a buyback guarantee.
Of course its important to do your own research on the company you are investing in. the company profile should be looked at before placing your money into an investment.
What returns can I expect?
Well this question depends upon the sum you have available for investment, If you invest lets say 10euro vs 1000euro vs 10,000 euros the returns are going to be significantly different from each other.
I would say on average the majority of people are investing between 1000 – 4000 euros on average. this quantity is a good amount for initial investing strategy and can provide some pocket money on the side.
Of course the more you invest the better!
Does Mintos allow investments in cryptocurrencies?
Unfortunatley cryptocurrency investing is not yet supported and mintos. Crypto is a volatile inestment and only a few companies are accepting crypto as a currency for payments. Hence the answer to that question is No.
Start investing now !
If you want more information on Mintos and want to start investing click here. I personally think its one of the best investing strategies to rather keeping you money stagnant in the bank.