Converting to Notes made the product a regulated security with an approved prospectus, an approved issuer structure and a compensation scheme. None of that changes the fact that repayment depends on a third-party lender in Kazakhstan, Kenya, Poland or the UK staying solvent, and the 2026 Nera Capital case proves it: a fully licensed, fully documented Note series with over 61m euros at risk. Two other things are worth stating. Mintos ranks ahead of investors when recovered money is shared out. And despite being listed everywhere as a crowdfunding platform, no Mintos company holds a crowdfunding licence - it is an investment firm distributing securities.

Mintos is run by its two co-founders. Martins Sulte is chairman and chief executive; Martins Valters is the other board member and handles finance and operations. A supervisory board of Janis Abasins, Mikus Janvars and Reinis Viba oversees them, and both boards are confirmed in the audited 2024 and 2025 group accounts. The largest shareholders in 2025 were ALPPES Capital at 30.52%, MS CAP at 14.76% and Crowdcube Nominees at 11.81% - the last reflecting the fact that Mintos itself has raised money from retail investors. A further share offering was made in January 2026. The group is loss-making: 14.47m euros of revenue in 2025 against a 2.28m euro loss, after a 2.74m loss in 2024, and it took a 2.2m euro capital injection in early 2026.

Automated loan portfolios cost 0.39% a year, or 0.29% for the custom version. The money market product costs 0.19% a year and the bond portfolio 0.39%. Selling on the secondary market costs 0.85%; buying is free. Currency exchange starts at 0.50% depending on the pair, though one long-standing investor reports 1% in practice. Paying in by SEPA transfer is free, but card, Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits cost 2%. There is a one-off, non-refundable 50 euro registration review fee where extra compliance checks are needed, and a 4.90 euro monthly inactivity fee. Withholding tax of 5% is deducted for EU and EEA residents, 20% for Latvians and nothing for Lithuanians with a certificate. Recovery costs also come out of anything recovered, ahead of you.

No, and this is the most misunderstood point on the platform. The 20,000 euro compensation scheme covers Mintos failing as an investment firm - losing or failing to return your money or securities. It expressly does not cover a change in the price of an investment, the default of a borrower, lending company or issuer, or the absence of a buyer. It applies only to Notes, not to older investments made by assignment. The Notes documentation is blunter still: they carry no credit enhancement and no liquidity support, and sit outside any deposit protection scheme. The buyback promise shifts borrower risk onto the lending company; it does not remove it.

Mintos picks and monitors lending companies. It checks a company's finances, loan book, management record, servicing ability and legal structure, then gives it a Mintos Risk Score from 10.0 for the lowest risk down to 1.0 for the highest. The score is built from loan portfolio performance at 40%, servicing efficiency at 25%, the strength of the buyback promise at 25% and the structure of the arrangement at 10%, and is reviewed every quarter with changes published. Lending companies must keep some of their own money in each loan. The weakness is the inputs: only 38% of these companies publish audited accounts, 45% are loss-making and roughly 80% were founded after 2008, so most have never been through a full credit cycle.

For most Notes the lending company must buy back any loan more than 60 days late at face value plus interest. That protects you while the company can pay and is worthless when it cannot. A payment counts as overdue after seven days; after 60 days extra interest starts accruing on it. A company that stops paying is suspended from issuing new loans, and if no restructuring is agreed within 180 days, or its cash flows cannot cover what it owes, or insolvency starts, it is marked defaulted. Recovery then means enforcement in the company's home country. Of 128.1m euros owed by seventeen companies in 2020, 35.3m had come back by November that year, and six years on around 122m to 130m across all cases is still unresolved.

Trustpilot scores 4.0 out of 5 from 4,445 reviews. The recurring complaints are verification taking 17 days or more against a promised five, difficulty withdrawing, blocked funds, the 4.90 euro monthly inactivity fee, an app missing features the website has, and email-only support. The substance, though, is the lending company failures. Around 100m euros defaulted in 2020, over 16% of the book at the time, and around 122m to 130m remains unresolved in 2026. In April 2026 Nera Capital stopped paying interest and then missed a large capital repayment due on 20 May, putting more than 61m euros at risk; Mintos says principal repayment at maturity cannot be guaranteed and will most likely be delayed, and those Notes could not be sold even at a 30% discount.. No regulatory action, fine or class action against Mintos was found.