Latvia’s peer-to-peer lending marketplace Mintos announced on Thursday, since its launch a year and a half ago, it has seen investors funding over €50 million in loans to both private individuals, along with small and medium-sized businesses. The website confirmed that the most loans have been financed from Latvia (33%), Lithuania (31%) and Estonia (23%) while the most funds were from Germany, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Mintos CEO and co-founder Martins Sulte, who is predicting by the end of 2016 investors through Mintos will have financed €100 million in loans, stated:
“All around the world, peer-to-peer lending concept is slowly replacing bank services from which the commercial banking sector is retreating. Today, banks no longer conduct the main mission of the financial system — connecting those postponing consumption with those who are consuming today, i.e. connecting savers and borrowers. Deposit rates are close to zero or even negative, while access to credit is limited. This increases the non-bank financial services market, which offers consumers easy, convenient and affordable services.”
Last month, investors reportedly financed €7 million in loans through Mintos. It also noted that investors already received €1 million in interest since Mintos’ launch along with more than 10,000 investors finance loans on the marketplace. Earlier this year, Mintos announced it had closed its seed funding round, which has attracted €2 million from Skillion Ventures, a Riga-based venture capital firm. Sulte previously explained:
“Traditionally, non-bank lenders have financed their loans from their balance sheets. Now, with the help of Mintos, non-bank lenders have the opportunity to use the peer-to-peer lending model to diversify methods of financing loans. For investors, Mintos provides the chance to gain access to loans that were previously accessible to a very limited number of investors, or practically inaccessible at all.”
