Trine Review 2026

What it is

Trine is a Swedish crowdlending platform, based in Gothenburg and lending since 2015. Private investors lend to companies that sell or run solar power and electric vehicles in emerging markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, such as rooftop solar for businesses and electric two-wheelers. By 25 October 2026, 15,318 investors had put in €119.2 million, much of it repayments lent again, and €97.6 million had been paid back.

How it works

You choose loans yourself or use auto-invest. Loans are in euros or US dollars; the borrowers earn in local currencies, so currency falls become their problem first and can turn into credit risk for you. Standard loans run about five years with quarterly repayments; profit-share loans, which pay out on the electricity produced, can run up to 15 years. The average term of new loans was 74 months in 2025 and 68 months in early 2026. In August 2026 only one loan was open to new investment.

Returns

Trine publishes what investors actually earned: across all loans issued from 2015 to 2026, the weighted average return was 5.85% a year after credit losses and before tax (25 October 2026). It is well below the rates offered on loans, because of losses in earlier years; the average rate on all loans is 7.43%. By year of issue, returns range from 3.06% (2016) and 3.51% (2022) to 7.67% (2024), 8.26% (2025) and 9.16% (2026); the recent years are still being repaid and are partly projections. Loans issued since 2021 average 6.5%. New loans offer about 8% to 9%; a loan open in August 2026 projected 9.30%, give or take 2%. The figures leave out your own currency conversion costs and count restructured loans as performing. Some long-term investors report returns close to zero.

Losses and defaults

Investors have lost real money. Unsecured lending for household solar kits went badly in 2019 to 2021: credit losses peaked at 9.1% of the portfolio in 2020 and reached €7.7 million by the end of 2024. In December 2025 two more borrowers were written off, for €2.84 million, which is 4.2% of the €68 million lent from 2021 to March 2026 (calculated from the platform's own figures); nothing had been recovered by March 2026. The platform's live figures show €8.19 million defaulted out of €118.8 million fully funded since the start, 6.89% (25 October 2026).

The yearly default rate Trine reports under the EU crowdfunding rules was 8.99% for 2023 (8 of 89 loans), and 0% for 2024 and 2025. It counts a loan as defaulted when the borrower is unlikely to pay in full without enforcing security, or is more than 90 days late. The 0% sits beside the 2025 write-offs and 28 loans to one borrower, ecoligo, that were put on new repayment plans and are counted as performing. Six borrowers took about 68% of lending from 2021 to 2026.

What secures your money

Security differs from loan to loan: some have a company guarantee or a pledge over the solar equipment or the payments customers owe, and some are unsecured. Certain loans carry investment protection from Sida, the Swedish development agency, and Trine guarantees each new investor's first investment up to €100. There is no buyback and no provision fund. Each loan gets an internal risk grade, and a borrower in trouble is first put on a new repayment plan before it is declared in default. Trine's review of its older losses shows about 43% recovered; on the two loans written off in December 2025, nothing has come back yet. In plain words: you depend mainly on small energy companies in developing countries paying, and enforcing security there is slow.

Who runs it and its licence

Trine AB (company 559003-1463, Gothenburg, registered in February 2015) is supervised by Sweden's financial regulator, Finansinspektionen. It has been an authorised payment institution since 2019 and a licensed EU crowdfunding service provider since 11 December 2023. It is a small company: in 2025 it had revenue of SEK 13.5 million, a loss of SEK 3.2 million and equity of SEK 11.9 million. No regulator action against it was found.

Fees

Trine charges no fee for card payments; SEPA transfers cost what your bank charges. Payments through Trustly from Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish bank accounts carry a 0.25% exchange fee when kronor are changed into euros.

Getting your money out

You cannot sell early. There is no secondary market, so your money comes back only as each borrower repays, over five years or more, and longer if a loan is restructured. Repayments land in your Trine wallet, where you can reinvest them or withdraw them to your bank. If Trine failed, your claims on the borrowers would remain and investor cash is held in a separate bank account, but no back-up company to run the loans is named.

Our view

Return: Very Low — investors earned 5.85% a year after losses across all loans since 2015. Risk: Very High (higher means more risk) — €2.84 million, 4.2% of lending since 2021, was written off in December 2025 with nothing recovered yet, after an earlier wave of losses, which on its own gives High; we set it one step higher because many loans have been restructured and a few borrowers hold most of the money. Risk-return: Very Low — a modest return for a very high level of risk, with money locked in for years.