Debitum does not choose the businesses that borrow. It onboards lending companies and buys their loan books through its own subsidiaries. Onboarding is described as due diligence on the lender's finances, business model and collateral, followed by a Trust Score that Debitum publishes and updates; each asset also gets a letter grade from A+ down to E minus. Lenders must keep 10% to 30% of each loan and stand behind a 90-day buyback. Since 2021 each programme has a prospectus approved by Latvia's central bank, which is a real extra gate — but a March 2026 investigation found those prospectuses omitted four intermediary companies, 274 properties worth EUR 5.7 million and EUR 120 million of pledges. The written criteria and scoring method are not published.

No — not by the licence and not by the compensation scheme. The buyback is written by the lending company itself, so if it fails the promise fails with it, and what you fall back on for the dominant forestry programme excludes a mortgage over the land. The Latvian scheme, up to 90% of a loss capped at EUR 20,000, responds only if Debitum itself cannot return your money or your securities. It pays nothing for credit losses, unpaid buybacks or collateral shortfalls.

The zero-defaults claim is Debitum's central marketing message and it only holds on a very narrow reading — roughly 10.5% of the book needed a buyback in 2024, 2.5% was not performing in August 2026, and the one real lender failure was moved into a Debitum-owned subsidiary rather than recorded. This is not an open marketplace: related-party lending at 87% of the book is a structural conflict, not a risk that spreading money across nine lenders fixes

Ownership is clear: Ingus Salmins has been sole ultimate owner since October 2025, having previously held about 67% with the remainder held through a second company. The 2024 board was Kristine Lapina, Martins Galzons, Eriks Rengitis and Ingus Salmins. Who is chief executive today is genuinely unclear — three different sources name three different people, and one independent reviewer lists frequent management changes as a red flag. Arguably the more important people are not Debitum's staff but those behind the lending companies: an investigation traced seven of nine to Debitum's own shareholders or to one Latvian family network, sharing two addresses, one of which is Debitum's own registered office, and using the same accountant.

There are three declared layers: supervision of Debitum as a licensed firm, the lending company keeping 10% to 30% of each loan, and collateral held by a Debitum subsidiary acting as security agent. In practice, a payment more than about 90 days late triggers the lending company's obligation to buy the claim back with interest, plus a 15% late penalty. That machinery has been used heavily — roughly 10.5% of the book needed a buyback in 2024, and every time the lender paid, which is why the 0% headline survives. It has been tested by an actual failure once: a Ukrainian lender stopped paying about EUR 1.9 million in 2022, and Debitum restructured it in July 2023 into a six-year plan inside its own subsidiary rather than recording a default. No recovery table or realised loss figure is published.

There are no fees for investors on any source checked: no investment fee, no platform fee, no deposit or withdrawal fee, no currency fee and no account fee. There is no resale fee because there is no resale market. Debitum is paid by the lending companies, at 2% to 3% commission, which was essentially its whole revenue line in 2024. The real costs are elsewhere. Tax is withheld at source — 20% for Latvian residents, 5% for EU and EEA residents outside Latvia, and nothing for Lithuanian residents and companies — and non-Latvian residents must report it themselves. Beyond that, an investigation calculated an implicit transfer of about 34% of value to insiders on the forestry programme.

Yes, and they are relatively generous. There is a loyalty programme paying up to 2% extra interest plus EUR 20, and a 4% cashback campaign advertised as running to 30 June 2026. A EUR 20 sign-up bonus applies where a new investor deposits and invests at least EUR 1,000 in securities with a term of at least 90 days, within 60 days of registering. The help centre also carries a section on cashback and referrals, confirming a referral scheme exists, though the exact current terms and the referral payout could not be read. Treat campaign rates as time-limited rather than permanent.

Yes, and it dominates the story about Debitum in 2026. In March 2026 an independent investigation, built on Latvian company filings, land registry records for 652 properties, 52 sets of accounts and regulator-approved prospectuses, alleged that 87% of the portfolio is routed to one related network; that forest land bought through family-linked intermediaries carried an average 50% markup, including seven plots bought for EUR 10,456 and sold on for EUR 130,000 in 113 days; that there is an unexplained EUR 24.6 million gap in stated inventory; and that there were 14 instances of missing or false related-party disclosure. Debitum replied on 27 March 2026, correcting two secondary points but not the markups, the gap or the filings. The largest German-language Baltic blog concluded the core allegations had not been substantially refuted, paused new investment and withdrew money in May 2026. One investor claim is listed for hearing on 14 October 2026. Trustpilot showed 3.5 from 59 reviews, but that figure dates to February 2025. Latvia's central bank has said nothing publicly.