How safe is Mintos?
How to make it safer?
How to avoid allocation mistakes?
Here I report 7 typical P2P investors’ mistakes and my own Mintos allocation
The best part?
✅ I’ll give you instructions to find out if you’re unbalanced
+ some actionable Mintos tips & tricks
Until now I have peacefully lent 136.580,85 € on Mintos so …I can talk
⚠️ Mintos is a high-risk investment platform. Mintos’ lenders can default or stop paying. Borrowers are not always reliable. Do not investing money you are not willing to lose.
My intention is to invest on Mintos:
- In the safest possible way
- For the long term
- Not for the highest yield
( ..I know this sounds boring but the outcome can be surprising)
In this article, I mainly want to summarize the best and the worst approaches to Mintos portfolio distribution from my (limited) point of view.
Also read the best Mintos alternative out there!
After writing the most complete guide on how to use Mintos, now I want to focus on how to make it safer.
Table of Contents
Is Mintos safe?
Mintos has 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars on my P2P ratings table and ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars on my awesome P2P comparison table.
My main goal when investing is preserving the capital and then make it grow.
I am not for gambling or all-in strategies with my money.
Since P2P lending may not be the safest practice in the world, I value Mintos for making P2P a bit safer than it was before.
[bctt tweet=”Mintos safety depends also from the use we make of it” username=””]
Picking the loans properly can make our Mintos a safer investment.
Safer P2P doesn’t mean risk-free.
Mintos lenders can go belly up, suffer major problems and delays due to internal or environmental causes.
Thi is to say that, even if protected by the excellent buyback guarantee, loans can go late or default for different reasons.
It is normal on Mintos to have a part of the loans in ricovery status.
This does not mean the money is lost, but it is a risk I need to be ready to face.
⭕️ Mintos is NOW open again to new investors
They also offer a big bonus to new investors.
How do I allocate my funds on Mintos
This is very connected to the choice of the best Mintos originators and geographic preferences.
A good Mintos loan allocation should take into account many factors.

What is my ultimate goal?
To have a safe, resilient and durable Mintos portfolio
⚠️ If I was someone who feels insecure on setting up a portfolio on Mintos manuali I’d rather let the invest & access work for me.
The new Invest & access conservative is a decent option to get started fast on Mintos without complex setting and difficult questions.
List of the most common Mintos allocation mistakes
Of course, this is only my opinion, and I strongly recommend you to find your truth by making tests and reading from other experts.
[bctt tweet=”I am not a Michelin-starred P2P super-expert. I am a human investor who makes tests and listens to people to learn from them” username=””]It doesn’t matter how much money I have invested, I want to avoid beginners mistakes and I need to make my Mintos a safer place where to grow my money.
☣️Mistake n°1
Premature ejaculation on Mintos💦
I know some Mintos investors only go for “short term loans”
Guess what…I don’t agree!
Is Mintos safer if I only pick short-term loans?
Lender default risk is rather the same, but doing this I will heavily affect my loan diversification.
- Only some lenders in some countries work with short term loans
- Short-term focused lenders may have more aggressive policies
- New regulations are (eventually) reducing the APR in some Baltic states and more regulations are to come
Regulators will probably reduce the number (and the profitability) of short loans available soon.
Short term loans are, on average, the less ethical class of loans and sometimes are just loans issued to pay the previous loan.
I don’t want to feed this monster. Investing comes with responsibility, so I care so I try to act accordingly.
I believe short term loans are not safer just because of the short duration.
Mintos and P2P lending, in general, should be considered for long term investing purposes.
My takeaway:
I do not concentrate on short-term loans and try to get the lowest APR when possible.
☣️Mistake n°2
Sharing the same amount evenly on all loans originators

I know some Mintos investors do their best to equally share their money on all loans originators
I don’t do it.
Among all possible mistakes, this is by far the less troublesome, I’d not even call it a real mistake, but keep reading…
What I want to point out here is that doing so I am putting on the same level originators that have very different profile risk and should not be treated the same.
Did you know that some Lenders only (or mostly) serve “indirect loans”?
Well, it is not a big issue maybe, but I should take this into account.
[bctt tweet=”Sharing my funds on all lenders would inevitably bring to overweight some countries and some loan types and I don’t want that” username=””]
I’d prefer to start from the (presumed) lender reliability and overweigh them.
This doesn’t mean to focus on 5 or 15 lenders, but only to overweight those who know are more transparent and reliable.

My takeaway:
I give more weight to the lenders I prefer and than I spread the rest on the others. I just avoid the smallest and the lowest rated.
☣️Mistake n°3
Going for the highest interest rate (whatever it takes)💪🏼
I know some Mintos investors just go for the highest interest loans
Again, I don’t agree.
I couldn’t agree less.
Let’s use our brain, it is not that easy. I wish it was.
Why?
It will not be easy, the day:
- Some hundreds of our borrowers lose their job
- Some loan originator goes bankrupt
- We are too exposed to some specific country or loan type
- A sudden change in regulations brings restrictions on a specific country/Lender
- The currency we traded to buy high-interest loans crushes
Hopefully, that day will never come, but should this happen, I will make my portfolio to have a more resilient structure.
I will keep on having a very conservative profile on Mintos.
What is a reasonable interest rate on Mintos loans?
I think the P2P lending risk has to be balanced by high interests. For the safest lenders, this may be as low as 6-7% for me (only for the sake of diversification).
Some of the safest Mintos lenders pay less than 8% interest. Should I cut them off my portfolio? I won’t.
I want as many good loans originators as possible in my portfolio. Even if they pay lower interest rates.
Warren Buffet once stated:
[bctt tweet=”Only when the tide goes out you discover who has been swimming naked” via=”no”]
I think this applies very very well to loans market.
My takeaway:
I don’t spread my money evenly if I know there are different degree of risk and convenience around.
☣️Mistake n°4
Trading currencies on Mintos📈
I know some Eurozone Mintos investors get loans in currencies different from euro
One more time, I don’t agree.
Why do they do that?
- To get much higher interests!
Mintos allows me to invest in different currencies and some loans are just listed in different currencies. These loans normally pay higher interests.
To be successful in such a strategy, the investor should be able to control more things.
Do these people have any experience in (successful) trading currencies or to forecast currency fluctuations?
Well, I hope they do. Even though I find it pointless to mix two things like forex trading and loans in P2P.
Moreover, if I know for sure that weak currencies have a historically tendency to lose value against the Euro
Am I sure to do the right thing in investing in those currencies? The 18% interest on loans might be erased by an ordinary swing of the exchange rate.
I do not invest in other currencies but Euros on Mintos (my currency).

Of course, I do play with currency exchange rates, but not on Mintos.
Doing some very small experiments on Mintos investing in different currencies is absolutely fine since one knows what is he doing.
Did you know there are fees to pay when exchanging money on Mintos? Maybe not.
My takeaway:
I invest in Euro in euro-issued loans only.
☣️Mistake n°5
Some lenders don’t pay fees during “grace period”
I know some Mintos investors avoid loan originators that don’t pay fees during “grace period”.
Guess what…I don’t agree!
Less than 3% of my loans spend time idling in a “grace period“. For me, it is pointless to exclude those loans and reduce the diversification to earn some extra cents.
Did you know only 7 lenders have long “grace periods”? I think the impact is marginal.
I strongly believe it is crucial to avoid (or reduce exposure) to some loans originators and to some specific loans depending on the time horizon. On the other hand, I only consider Mintos and P2P investing in general for long term investing purposes.
My takeaway:
I prefer diversification over micro-optimization.
☣️Mistake n°6
Some loan originators don’t pay fees on delays

I know some Mintos investors avoid loan originators that don’t pay interest on income on delayed payments.
I partially agree.
Since approximately 20% of my loans stay in a late payment state, I’d better worry about it.
Worrying itself is a useless activity, so I’d rather address the problem with a solution.
Should I exclude all the lenders that don’t offer interests on late loans?
I decided for myself. NO.
One more time, doing so will heavily reduce my diversification.
Why?
Because the lenders that are not offering me late payment fees are just too big (and reliable) to be excluded for the sake of some extra euros.
One of the lenders with that issue is Mogo. I will not exclude Mogo from my best Mintos lenders list. At least not yet.
Of course, I consider reducing exposure to some of these lenders if more reasons arise.
My takeaway:
I prefer diversification but I keep my eyes open.
☣️Mistake n°7
Micro-investing on Mintos🔬
I know some Mintos investors fraction investments on thousand of loans
I do set my maximum investment per loan up to 30/60€.
Is it too much?
Absolutely not, and I tell you why.
I know that many get obsessed with minimum amounts and some investors don’t even let the auto-invest buy more of the same loans (limiting buying potential).
Fractioning our investments on many loans is virtually correct, but I should remember how buyback works.
Beware: What I am going to say makes sense only if I am investing in buyback guaranteed loans.
First things first.
On Mintos there are direct and indirect loans.
Getting buyback guaranteed loans on Mintos from direct loans lenders means getting an exposure towards the loan originator, not to the borrower.
The good news?
- Most loans on Mintos are “direct”
In any case, if the borrower doesn’t pay, it will be the lender to refund our money whenever a borrower doesn’t pay.
If I am invested in direct loans, the day the lender goes out of business it would not make a big difference to me if I am exposed towards 200 or 2000 borrowers.
Why?
Because I am first exposed to the lender.
This is the opposite I need to do with indirect loans on Mintos, and on other P2P websites with no buyback guarantee (like Bondora)
On Bondora I will fraction a lot and also care about the quality of the borrowers.
My takeaway:
I prefer buyback/direct loans.
Cashback and …run away
I know some Mintos investors trade on cashback offers
That’s absolutely fair, I did a bit of this with the first generous Mogo campaigns. The only downside is that it can be time-consuming. If I am trading with small capital I won’t be able to see a huge performance boost.
How to do trading on Mintos Lenders cashback?
Easy:
- Wait for the extraordinary cashback announcement (via email from Mintos)
- Subscribe to the campaigns
- Buy the offered loans complying with the given conditions
- Cash in the bonus and immediately sell the loans
Does it work?
Yes and no.
The risk is to get stuck with unwanted loans if we don’t succeed in selling it.
It has been a great opportunity doing that with the first generous Mogo campaigns.
Arbitrage and trading on Mintos
I know some investors do arbitrage on Mintos secondary market
That’s a nice idea but let’s take a much closer look.
Are you on Mintos to make a hands-off investment?
If yes, skip this chapter.
Arbitrage takes time and some knowledge.
Mintos loans can be in 5 different states:
- 30-60 days late
- 15-30 days late
- 1-15 days late
- Grace period
- Current
Beware of this before starting because late loans are normally cheaper.
Since loan prices on the secondary market can differ a lot, there are opportunities to buy loans at discount and sell it at premium.
Open up a loan detail and go to “Investment breakdown”.
You will see all the “shareholders” of that loan and their sale price. The offer might range from +20% to -99%.
A profit can be also made by buying at discount and sell at par or with a reduced discount.
Investing this way I can profit by the price difference and not from the interest rate.
Is Mintos the safest P2P?
Relatively yes, but P2P lending investing is never risk-free.
The relative safety on Mintos comes from different aspects:
- I can rely on the buyback only if it is offered by good lenders
- I can distribute my loans on many countries reducing the geographic risk
- I can spread my loans across shorter and longer duration
- I am welcome to use automation and enjoy fast cash in on current loans
- I can fine-tune my custom strategy and get exactly what I decide to have in my portfolio
- I have full control (as we will see below) on what’s inside my portfolio
- The access to fresh stats has always been guaranteed so far
- Age of the platform. Mintos is a 2015 P2P, it is getting older compared to the competitors
- Size. Mintos is the biggest loans marketplace in Europe (ex UK)
With the arrival of the Mintos “Invest & access” portfolio which is totally automated, I believe investors should pay extra attention to their loan distribution. At least, I do.
I use both strategies (I&E + Custom) and I do my best to avoid to be too exposed on some particular lender, country or loan type.
Keep reading and I’ll explain to you why I am …so boring.
Why should I care about Mintos safety?
- If I am about to start with Mintos and I want to do that safely, I will be happy to read how to setup it properly also beyond the “Invest & access”
- If I am already investing, I might want to take stock of the situation and in case, bring adjustments
So, if you are started or about to start with Mintos, you are reading the right article.
What is the problem with “Invest & Access?
Loan distribution
“Invest & Access” is a great tool to invest hands-free.
My tests are in progress to see if it can get me too many loans from some specific loans originators and some specific countries.
From my tests the ordinary loans-allocation with “Invest and access” is not bad at all, but two things can happen:
- I get mainly exposed on 4 or 5 lenders
- The automation could change one day and start to get me also low-quality loans
The first issue is already a reality, even if the 4 or 5 lenders are very good ones
The second issue is that if I rely too much on automation this may lead to losing control of my loans allocation (..this is an issue for a P2P lending NERD like me).
This is why I find correct for me to find a balance between:
- Custom strategy
- Invest and access
- Manual investing (this is for P2P nerds)
Yes, I buy my loans in these three ways.
How to know if I am overexposed on Mintos🔮
If you want to know if your portfolio on Mintos is balanced just do this:
- Login to Mintos
- Go to “My Investments” page
- Start to play with the settings (you cannot make any damage from here)

Your portfolio under X-rays
Now to get a complete picture do this:
Click on the “country” and “loan originator” button above the pie chart.
I consider my portfolio “balanced” if none of the slices is bigger than 25%, but 15% is better.
From the filters, on the left sidebar, I can make a deeper analysis
Do I have any loans without buyback guarantee?
- I can find out here by heading on the “buyback guarantee” filter.
What class rating are my loans?
- I can filter loans out by class.
If I want to find out what “Amortization method” I have for my loans it’s easy:
I scroll down to:
- “Amortization Method”
- Select “All”
- Deselect “Full”
This is interesting.
Why?
Doing so I get a view of the loans with those characteristics and I keep in mind that “Full” is always preferable.
My takeaway? I only buy “partial” and other types of loans from the best lenders.
I do this because if my filters are too tight I am likely not to get enough loans from those good lenders.
Finished investments

What happened to my old and reimbursed loans?
My repaid loans are stored in “finished investment page”, a forgotten page on Mintos.
In truth, it is important, since it reminds me how many thousands of loans have been repaid (or bought back) peacefully.
I can also pull out interesting data out of it.
So far, I have lent 136.580,84 € on Mintos
50€ + 1% Mintos Bonus
Conclusion
So, is Mintos safe?
Don’t trust me.
Go to Mintos and decide for yourself. I gave you all the information to understand how safe is Mintos, if it was not enough now go to the Mintos review.
Too much information?
Get more about this topic and future evolutions through the “boring newsletter”!
If you are in search of a slower and “safer” way to invest you may want to read the latest MoneyFarm Review.
P.S.
Have I missed something? Am I totally wrong?
What is your experience so far? Have you tested a different setup?
Is Mintos safe in your opinion?
I’d be glad to hear from you!
Use the comment box to interact and then share this post!
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Funny images! Nice actionable post. Performed the check you recommend. I am using Invest and access and it is just fine to me. Many loans from the biggest lenders and less from the smaller ones. Lots of personal loans. I guess it is normal. Greetings. Kyle
Very nice guide. I am discovering this world with you and I think that it could be a good opportunity also for small capital amounts.
What can I do (I am currently using auto invest) to balance my country and loan originator distribution more evenly?
Nice question Michael. I’ll give you my opinion, not an advice.
I am not a fan of “evenly”. I prioritize the best lenders.
There are 2 ways.
One is: I open my “current investments”/pie chart/loan originators and I make sure to not to have any lender above 15/20% of the total (Mogo is the biggest usually). I find out what are the top 5/10 lenders I want to prioritize. At least 50% of the loans have to be from those lenders, so I create a Custom Portfolio or I adjust the existing ones.
Note: If I have more custom portfolios the order matters. The portfolios on the top of the page have priority, so I move it up and down according to my needs.
Second option, and more scientific way to do it, is through an excel spreadsheet.
I go to “current investments”, I cancel any active filter and I “download selected list”.
Do you mean the top 5/10 lenders of whole mintos? And what is your rationale behind choosing them? Thank you for your first message.
I give some nice hints to my newsletter subscribers and I intend to write much more about this sensitive topic. An immediate way to get started can be to avoid the worst lenders (those C-rated by Mintos). Not enough, but it’s a start. I also keep “I & A” partially active.
Thanks for your quick response + the newsletter. I’ll take a look into it. One question to your suggestion regarding “avoid the worst lenders”. Why should I care when I have a buyback guarantee on C-rated lenders on mintos?
I care Michael, because Mintos buyback is offered by lenders not by Mintos.
I was checking your website and subscribed for your newsletter, reading your articles…Thank you for that by the way. Its very helpful.
There is one document I was not able to find. ” Who are the best loan originators and the originators to avoid”. I could not find it under newsletter. Would you be so kind and helpful and post or send me the link? I would really like to know more about the content.
I will definitely write something specific on how do I choose my best Mintos loan originators. BTW, there are already some hints in the newsletter you will get in the next months for me.
When is this article on best loan originators expected?
Cheers 🙂
I have a question concerning safety. I know our exposure against Loan Originators defaulting (even when only buying buyback guarantee loans) , but stemming from the recent Kuetzal/Envestio stuff, what happens if Mintos website one day goes down? Do we (investors) have any way to claim our money?
I am wondering this, because the nature of this is not something you do for a specific timeframe and cashout, but rather you let your money and expect them to grow, and you might even add more as time goes buy. So if there is no safety at all against a Mintos closure, should we live with the fear that we might be doing all this for nothing or need to cashout as early as possible and not be greedy?
I wish it was a case of “when/if Mintos goes down, it was good while it lasted and you gained what you gained” , but it doesn’t seem like that…
Mintos structure is totally different from Envestio and Kuetzal and that’s why +200.000 investors trust it. If Mintos should have problems one day, as an investor, I will still have the claims against the borrowers (most loans on mintos are direct loans) so I will not lose money because of this. So I’d not worry much, Kostantinos. BTW I consider P2P investing suitable for a limited part of my total portfolio, not 100%.
Hello again, In case mintos collapses, how do you think technically it will work that investors will continue to receive the repayments directly from loan originators? Are you sure that LO have a list of all investors of their loans? Also in case they have, what is the legal base binding them to repay investor, and even if exist how can it be enforced when investors and LO are from different parts of the globe?
Hi Tonix. Mintos serves 2 types of loans, direct and indirect. Mostly direct. In case of direct loans the borrower and nobody else is responsible to repay the loan to the investors. In case of indirect loans the lender is responsible towards the investors. Mintos has nothing to do with it and does not offe any guarantee to anybody (much better). If Mintos collapse lenders and borrowers will have to keep paying.
Now open your Mintos, go to “current investments” and you will notice that beside every single loan in the portfolio there is a 📕 PDF icon. Click on it and you will read the binding contract that Mintos stipulated between your and the lender/borrower. So, yes, there is a list of the binding agreements and you both have it. It would take too many words to explain here how it works but you can read it here.
Hello, thank you for the nice post. I have just started using Mintos. I a trying to check how liquid it is, because i also value safety a lot. So i am bying and selling only to understand how long does it take to liquidate and leave. so far i saw that 2 loans allocated to me from Mintos (invest and access) were sold less than few hours, 1 loan i bought myself at primary market was sold within 1 day, while 4 loans i purchased at secondary market ( 3 of them discounted) have not been sold yet and it is 3rd day now. All of the loans are in current status, have good repayment history and interest rates higher than 11%. So i am wandering your quote “I can sell my loans almost immediately on the secondary market with a little discount or at par”. Whats has been the average liquidation time for you? Do you find anything unusual about my case, because i am starting to think that either the platform is not so liquid as they or many bloggers claim or i am doubtIng that the platform may be designed to prevent people from speculating (bying and selling to earn from discount/premiums).
Mintos is not as liquid as the stock market but to date, I have been able to sell within seconds most of my (good) loans just applying a discount above 0,5%. On Mintos there are almost 1 Million loans on offer today. Invest & access service has priority over other operations so, yes, Mintos was not created to exchange loans but to invest long-term, this is what I do. Bondora claims to offer instant access to the invested money with its go & grow 4% and, so far, liquidity was guaranteed.
Hi, Very informative post and really appreciate the effort you put into it. X
Hi Sal,
Goint through your posts making me aware of how it really works. Good job and keep doing it! Last Comment is from 2020. Where are with your investments at the beginning of 2023? Can you share some numbers?
Wondering about 1 point here – why it would be considered as beginner mistake to invest only in short term strategies e.g. like 2 months?
What i am trying to ask is what difference in terms of risk and earnings would be putting all money in mintos into short term strategy again as example 2 months (50 eur per 1 loan) in comparing to 6month or even 12 months?
Hi Paweł!
Short term loans are not risk free, they also leave me with the problem of investing again the capital thus finding new loans.
The best strategy on Mintos is certainly setting up a custom portfolio buying only loans from good loan originators.