Lendermarket Review

In this Lendermarket Review, we will take a look at the cashback offer, rates, and loans that are offered in this p2p lending platform. As always, I would like everyone to know that this will be in an independent review.

Updated: February 2022

What Is Lendermarket? 

Lendermarket is a p2p lending platform established in June 2019 and is located in Dublin, Ireland. While it has been only established for a short period of time, it is a sister company of Creditstar Groups AS. It is a consumer financial services company established in 2006. The Group has 12 subsidiaries that issue loans in 8 different countries. If the name “Creditstar” sounds familiar, you are probably a Mintos investor. The company is a loan originator at Mintos as well, but they offer higher rates on Lendermarket. The minimum investment is 10 EUR, and all loans are listed in EUR.

Creditstar has more than 805,000 customers in 8 countries across Europe, including Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Poland, the UK, Czech Republic, Spain, and Denmark.

Taking a look at their 2019 and 2020 annual report, I have to say I am pretty impressed. They were able to grow both their assets and income while improving their operating margin. 

Highlights From Their Financial Statement (31.12.2020-31.12.2019)

• Total Assets: €159 million up from 123 million (26.27% Increase)
• Loans to Customers: €180 million from €140 (33.49% Increase)
• Doubtful Receivables: €35 million from 28 million (25% Increase-Loan Portfolio performed better overall)
• Interest Income of €35 million from 31 million (12.90% Increase)
• Profit for the year: €5.497 million from 5.345 million (2.85% Increase)
• Cash: €1.53 million down from 1.76

They were also able to reduce their operating expenses and improve their profit margin as well. As you can see, the numbers are very impressive. Just as an FYI, these are the latest numbers available on Lendermarket’s website regarding their audited financial reports as of February 2022.

Rates – Lendermarket Vs Mintos

Lendermarket offers rates between 12% and 14% on all loans (Increased from 12% starting 17/03/2020). Creditstar loans on Mintos are listed with rates between 8.5% and 11%. So, if you invest through Lendermarket, you will get a much better rate here vs Mintos. I have started to appreciate platforms that offer flat rates like Swaper and ViaInvest, especially with the recent drop in rates on Mintos. At least with these platforms, you know the rate you will get, and that is more dependable long term.

Loans

Creditstar Group subsidiaries provide short-term loans between 50EUR and 5,000EUR to its customers, with repayment terms between five days to six years. Then, these loans are listed on the Lendermarket platform that investors can buy. In the screenshot below, you can see the performance of Creditstar’s loans on Mintos.

Loan Liquidity

So far, there are plenty of loans on the platform, and cash drag is not an issue. Loans have a fixed rate of 14%, so investors don’t have to compete for loans with higher rates like on other platforms. 

Auto-Invest

The platform has a simple solution that offers you a way to optimize your investing. You simply set the criteria for your money to be invested, and each time a loan that meets the conditions appears on the loan list, an investment is made automatically, saving you time while at the same time keeping you in full control. You can also stop, cancel, or change your Auto-Invest settings at any time.

Buyback Guarantee

All loans on Lendermarket come with a Buyback Guarantee. The terms of the guarantee are pretty standard and similar to that of many other p2p lending platforms. The loan originator will buy back any loan from the investors that is more than 60 days overdue from their due date. The originator will buyback the loan at the nominal value of the outstanding principal, plus accrued interest income and late payment fees.

Risks

Lendermarket carries more or less the same level of risk as other platforms. Personally, I would say that it is safer than most platforms because of the large Group that guarantees the loans. According to their latest audited financial statement (31.12.2020), they also had 1.5 million in cash. This, on top of the rest of the numbers that we went through earlier, gives me some peace of mind that they will be able to cover their buyback guarantee if things come to that.

Secondary Market

There is no secondary market on the platform, and they don’t have an early exit option either. Once you have confirmed your investment in the loan, the investment cannot be canceled or exited early. You will have to wait until maturity or the buyback guarantee to be activated.

Fees

Investing through Lendermarket is completely free of charge as per usual with p2p lending platform. It does not charge any fees for opening and maintaining an account, depositing or withdrawing funds.

Sign-Up Process

The sign-up process is similar to any p2p lending platform. You can click here (by doing that, you are also eligible to receive a 1% cashback bonus of the Net Deposited Funds during the first 60 days) and go through the steps on the registration page. At the final step, it will ask you to upload identification documents, like a Passport, Government ID card, or a Residence Permit. This is a mandatory step, and you will not be able to finish the registration process until you complete it.

Lendermarket’s Competitors

Lendermarkets main competitors are regular p2p lending platforms like Mintos. In fact, Creditstar lists loans on both Lendermarket and Mintos (as I said earlier, rates on Lendermarket are higher. However, Lendermarket has more similar characteristics with ViaInvest, Swaper and RoboCash. The reason I am saying this is because all three platforms provide short-term loans only and fixed rates. In ViaInvest, rates are fixed at 11% and the other two platforms provide fixed rates at 12%. However, I believe Lendermarket is the best of these three because it does not have cash drag (at least for now) and it provides a generous cashback promotion for new investors joining the platform.

How Did Lendermarket Do During Covid-19

Lendermarket performed well during the worst months of uncertainty at the beginning of the pandemic. During March and April 2020, Lendermarket extended most of the loans to its customers so your funds were tied up since no payments were being made and some of the loans were past due. However, after the first wave of the pandemic, Lendermarket paid the loans back with interest and the buyback guarantee worked as it should. No losses or significant delays were recorded for the investors like many other platforms like Mintos. They also increased their returns from 12% to 14% to make their investment proportion better in these uncertain times. Also, I made a test withdraw of 1,000 eur to test the waters and add the processing time to my review, and Lendermarket processed it within one day!

Lendermarket Review – Conclusion

Lendermarket offers a great platform to invest your funds with competitive rates. Also, the originators are backed by Creditstar Group AS, which is a large and financially stable company for more than 10 years. It has also demonstrated the ability to both originate loans and pay its own bonds on time for a long period of time.

Lendermarket Bonus

You will receive a bonus of 1% of the Net Deposited Funds during the first 60 days after you are successfully validated. Net Amount Deposited is the amount of money deposited minus the amount of money withdrawn. The bonus will show up on your dashboard under the “Campaign rewards and bonuses” like my bonus shows up on the screenshot above.

For example: if one deposits 5,200 euros and withdraws 200 euros. Then the bonus will be 1% of 5,000, a total of 50€ bonus.

If you would like to start investing in Lendermarket, I would appreciate it if you could use my referral link.

Please leave your comments below, if you would like to add something about this Lendermarket review.