Regulated
Bonus running
Can sell early
- Risk level
- High
- Risk-return
- Medium
- Start from
- €50
Referral link · capital at risk
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ESTO UAB
Lithuania
ESTO, UAB sells instalment credit in Lithuanian shops for the Estonian ESTO group. Mintos investors lend it money and earn interest. Our memo scores it 38 out of 100 but grades it E, as its 2025 audit is qualified, and puts the chance it fails to pay within a year at 25% or more.
Key figures
- Average rate
- 7.76%
- average, not guaranteed
- Loan portfolio
- €3,003,044
- Start from
- €50
Capital at risk. The rate is agreed, not guaranteed: if a borrower defaults you can lose some or all of your money.
Would AI invest?
AI 38 LowOur AI gives this project 38 out of 100: Low. How the AI score works
Information, not personal investment advice. The AI score rates the documents the platform publishes, can be wrong, and does not predict returns.
AI review
AILender memo · ESTO UAB · Lithuania
ESTO UAB: how likely is it to fail to pay its lenders?
ESTO, UAB sells instalment credit at the till — the Lithuanian arm of the Estonian ESTO group, selling the same product through Lithuanian shops. It employed 13 people on average in 2025, in Vilnius. It is wholly owned by ESTO Holdings OÜ and funded by its parent. It has been on the Bank of Lithuania's public register of consumer credit providers since 9 March 2020. Mintos lists it as "ESTO UAB". This memo asks one question: what is the chance it fails to pay its lenders back in the next 12 months, and why.
THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. This memo was prepared with the help of AI from publicly available documents. It is general information for education only — not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything, and it does not take account of your circumstances. Figures may contain errors; check them against the original documents. Investing through P2P platforms can result in the loss of all money invested.
Our score
38/ 100
E Veto
ABCDE
at least 25%chance it fails to pay in the next 12 months
at least 1 in 4the same number, put the other way round
Where that sits on our scale
On our scale an E grade carries a portfolio limit of 0% (nothing). The marks we gave the six questions add up to 38, which would be a D and a limit of 2%. The veto described below overrides that. Lithuania is an A country and would allow 40%, which is beside the point here. These caps are a convention of our scale, applied to every lender we cover. They are not advice about your money.
The auditor would not sign off the 2025 accounts cleanly, and the company owes about €4m more than everything it owns
The grade does not come from the marks; it comes from the audit report. The 2025 accounts, audited by UAB "Tezaurus auditas" and signed on 4 June 2026, carry a qualified opinion: the auditor signed them off "except for" one item. The company counted €318.9 thousand as a prepaid expense, an asset, when in the auditor's words it "should have been included in 2025 expenses". Had it been, the loss and the owners' money would both have been €318.9 thousand worse. Under our method an auditor who will not sign off cleanly sets the answer to at least 1 in 4 and the grade to E, whatever the other marks say.
The rest of the picture would not have earned much more. This company has owed more than it owns at every year end we can see: minus €2.03m at the end of 2023 (as the company restated it in its 2024 accounts), minus €3.09m at the end of 2024 and minus €3.96m at the end of 2025. Income was €2.34m in 2025 and the loss €0.86m — about €37 lost for every €100 earned. The auditor also draws attention, for the second year running, to the going-concern note: equity is negative and "this matter remains unresolved". The parent has promised the company funding until the 2026 accounts are approved; it has not promised anything to the people lending through Mintos.
Six findings would override the marks and send the answer straight to E — lending more than half the owners’ money to people or companies connected to it, an auditor who will not sign off cleanly, an audit report carrying a material uncertainty about the business continuing, a broken financial promise to lenders, late payments to investors, or owners taking out more than the business earned two years running. One of them applies: an auditor who will not sign off cleanly — the qualified opinion on the 2025 accounts — and section 5 says exactly what it rests on and as of when. The going-concern emphasis in the same report is not a material-uncertainty finding, so it is a warning sign here, not a second veto. Two things would improve the odds, a confirmed guarantee from a parent that carries a credit rating, or written support backed by money actually paid in from a stronger supporter. Neither applies here.
💶Financial strengthE
Lost money in all three years. Interest to its own lenders took €56 of every €100 of income in 2025. Liabilities of €15.3m against assets of €11.3m.
📉Loan bookD
The book more than doubled in 2025. Bad loans cost 5.8% of the average book, down from 14.9%, but no arrears or ageing are published.
🇱🇹Country: LithuaniaA
The euro, strong courts, a sovereign rated A. But the rules on buy-now-pay-later changed in January 2026 and the cost cap falls again in November.
⚖️Group and other risksE
A qualified 2025 audit, a going-concern emphasis three years running, its loans pledged for the parent's financing, a 2022 regulator fine, and no guarantee to Mintos investors.
The qualified audit opinion is the veto. From the independent auditor's report on the 2025 accounts (UAB "Tezaurus auditas", auditor Aistė Perminaitė, 4 June 2026): "The Company's prepaid expenses and accrued income line item includes an amount of EUR 318.9 thousand that should have been included in 2025 expenses. Had the necessary adjustments been made, the prepaid expenses and accrued income and equity line items as at 31 December 2025, and the 2025 result, would have been EUR 318.9 thousand lower." The 2023 and 2024 opinions were not qualified.
Negative equity of about €4m, deeper every year, and a going-concern emphasis three years running. Minus €2.03m, minus €3.09m, minus €3.96m — or about minus €4.28m with the auditor's adjustment. Each auditor since 2023 has drawn attention to it. The Latvian sister company was in the same position and the parent fixed it with about €5.4m of new share capital in December 2025. Nothing of the kind appears in the Lithuanian company's 2025 accounts.
Its loan book is pledged for the parent's financing. The accounts say that "in connection with financing from ESTO Holdings OÜ" the company has pledged its portfolio of consumer loans to Triniti Collateral Agent VIII OÜ, up to a maximum of €110m. Someone other than Mintos investors therefore has a claim on these loans. We could not establish how that claim ranks against yours.
Why this number matters
Every investment carries risk, and risk is not really a letter or a mark out of ten. It is two plain questions: how likely is it that this company fails, and how much of your money would you lose if it did. Put those together and you can see whether the reward is worth it.
For ESTO UAB: at least a 25% chance of failing in the next 12 months. If we assume about 30% of the money comes back in that case, the risk costs roughly 17.5% a year. Mintos shows an average rate of 7.76% on this company, read on 9 November 2026. The risk costs more than twice what the rate pays. Note the words "at least": the veto sets a floor on the chance of failure, not an estimate of it.
Show how this works
1. The rate is a promise, not a result
An advertised 10% is what you are promised if everything goes well. What you keep is that rate minus what failures cost you. So the rate on its own tells you very little.
2. Put a price on the risk
Risk cost = chance of failing × share of your money you would not get back. Nobody knows the second number in advance. How much comes back has varied widely from case to case. We use 30% back, 70% lost, as our own working assumption so that memos can be compared with each other — it is not a measured figure, and the answer moves a lot if you choose differently.
3. Compare like for like
Take two imaginary lenders. One pays 14% but has a 17% chance of failing within the year: the risk costs about 11.9% a year, leaving roughly 2%. The other pays 9% with a 2.5% chance: the risk costs about 1.8%, leaving about 7%. The lower rate is the better deal. That is the whole idea.
The company at a glance
What it is
A registered consumer credit providerOn the Bank of Lithuania's public register since 9 March 2020, under company code 305219905. The company itself was established on 30 July 2019. It takes no deposits.
Who owns it
ESTO Holdings OÜWholly owned. A new director has been in place since 20 February 2026.
What it sells
Instalments at the tillThe same product family as ESTO in Estonia, sold through Lithuanian shops. 13 staff on average in 2025, Vilnius.
How big it is
€11.3m of assetsLoans of €10.0m after provisions and income of €2.34m in 2025. Equity is minus €3.96m.
On Mintos
€3.0m outstandingListed as "ESTO UAB" with the standard Mintos buyback. The figure is as published by the platform, read on 9 November 2026, and we have not verified it.
Mintos Risk Score
7.2 out of 10Portfolio performance 5.9, servicer efficiency 8.3, buyback strength 9.5, cooperation structure 4.5, as updated by Mintos on 9 October 2026 and read on 9 November 2026.
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Information, not personal investment advice. The AI score rates the documents the platform publishes, can be wrong, and does not predict returns.
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