Lendermarket review 2023
Is Lendermarket a great platform for P2P lending? Find out in our Lendermarket review below:
Lendermarket
Pros:
Cons:
Review summary:
Lendermarket is a great P2P lending platform for both European and international investors. The platform is a part of Creditstar Group which is a large profitable finance group. The return on the platform at around 15% is one of the best in the industry. Your investments are protected with a Buyback Guarantee. The two biggest drawbacks of the platform are the fact that they are only offering loans from two loan originators and that there is no secondary market yet.
It’s free to use the platform.
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Introduction to our Lendermarket review
Are you considering investing via Lendermarket? Then read on. We’ve written this Lendermarket.com review to help investors determine if Lendermarket is the right choice for them.
Below you will find an overview of the things that we will discuss more in detail in this Lendermarket review. Simply click on the links to jump directly to the thing you want to know more about.
Learn about this in our Lendermarket review:
- What is Lendermarket?
- Key features
- Who can use Lendermarket?
- How safe is Lendermarket?
- Our experience with Lendermarket
- Lendermarket reviews on Trustpilot
- Best Lendermarket alternatives
- Conclusion of our Lendermarket review
What is Lendermarket?
Lendermarket is a Peer-to-Peer lending platform that enables investors from around the world to invest in consumer loans from Creditstar and real estate loans from Credory.
The loans on the alternative lending market are covered by a buyback guarantee which will be explained later (in this section).
Lendermarket is based in Ireland and the platform was launched in 2019.
The company behind Lendermarket is actually the sister company of the Creditstar Group – which is where many of the loans on the platform originate from.
Previously, Creditstar had its loans available for investment on other P2P platforms like Mintos. But with the launch of Lendermarket it seems like the group is seeking more control over the funding process of the loans.
Since the launch of Lendermarket, the platform has experienced a high amount of growth as Creditstar is one of the companies a lot of P2P investors like to invest with.
In May 2022, Lendermarket became a multi-lender as they added the option to invest in loans from Credory. This is an Estonian real estate lending company.
Currently, the platform has over 16,000 users. The investors are earning an average return of around 15.24%.
With a minimum investment of €10, you can also open an account.
Lendermarket statistics:
| Founded: | 2019 |
| Loan Type: | Consumer |
| Loan Period: | 1 – 80 Months |
| Loans Funded: | € 342.000.000 + |
| Lendermarket Users: | 16.000 + |
| Minimum Investment: | € 10 |
| Maximum Investment: | Unlimited |
| Lendermarket Interest Rate: | 15.24% |
How Lendermarket works:
The overall journey of the investments on Lendermarket follows the following process (based on loans from Creditstar).
First, a borrower applies for a loan at Creditstar. If the loan is accepted, Creditstar will grant the loan to the borrower with the company’s own money.
Now Creditstar turns to Lendermarket to make the loan available for investment. From here, investors like you can invest in the loans and make a profit.
To make sure that the lending company is still making money, the loans are offered at a lower rate than what the company is actually making on it.
When the loan is fully funded, Creditstar now has more money to issue more loans.
In this way, a win-win situation is made between the lending company and the investors on Lendermarket.
Frequently asked questions:
Key features
We have already taken a look at some of the reasons why Lendermarket has become a popular choice among investors. In the following, we take a closer look at some of the key features that make it great to invest via the platform:
1. Lendermarket Buyback Guarantee
All loans at Lendermarket come with a Buyback Guarantee.
Essentially, the Lendermarket Buyback Guarantee is a guarantee from the lending company to buy back loans that are more than 60 days overdue.
Here, the investor will be paid both the invested amount of money in the loan as well as the accrued interest in the period.
The Buyback Guarantee is issued by the loan originator and not Lendermarket.
A thing that you have to keep in mind when you hear about buyback guarantees is the fact that the guarantee is only as solid as the one behind it.
So if the lending company behind the loan starts struggling, the loan might not get bought back.
2. Lendermarket auto-invest
Like a lot of other platforms, Lendermarket offers an auto-invest feature that makes it possible for you to put your loan investments on autopilot.
To use their auto-invest tool, simply follow this process:
- Make sure you have signed up
- Log in to your account
- Go to “Auto Invest”
- Click “Create New”
From here, you can make an auto-invest portfolio that suits your investment goals. You can make set up criteria for this feature to make it invest exactly as you want it to:
We recommend that you set the maximum per single loan low in order to be diversified between many loans.
Reinvesting is necessary if you want to invest automatically without having to check back all the time.
In order to make sure that you only get loans with the Buyback Guarantee, it is a good idea to select Buyback Guarantee only. This way you will only get loans with the guarantee – even if Lendermarket suddenly introduces loans without it.
If you want to know more about auto-investing, you can find more information on Lendermarket’s website here.
3. Lendermarket 1% cashback bonus
Lendermarket offers a 1% cashback bonus for new investors that gets referred to its platform.
We have received an affiliate link from Lendermarket, which means that you can get a 1% bonus for 60 days by using our referral link.
All you have to do to get the Lendermarket cashback is to activate the bonus by clicking the button below:
Who can use Lendermarket?
Both individuals and organizations can invest via Lendermarket.
Individuals
If you want to invest as an individual, you must at least meet the following requirements:
- Being at least 18 years old
- Being from one of the available countries (see below)
- Get your identity successfully verified by Lendermarket
If you can live up to these requirements, then you can start investing via the platform.
Organizations
If you run a company, you can also invest via Lendermarket. All you have to do in order to create an account for your business is to select “Company” when signing up.
If you are in doubt about registering as a company, you can just reach out to the support team. You can find the information here.
Available countries
Even though the loans are dealt with in EUR, it is possible to invest via the platform from around the world. The following is a list of all the countries that can invest via Lendermarket:
Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Isle Of Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan.
How safe is Lendermarket?
To determine if Lendermarket is safe, we have taken a look at some of the potential upsides and downsides of investing via the platform.
1. Lendermarket profitability
As Lendermarket Limited is a very young company, founded in 2019, there is not much financial information available to determine the long-term profitability of the company yet.
But according to the annual report for 2020, Lendermarket came out with a net loss of €407,698. This is quite normal for newer companies that are investing in growth.
Since Lendermarket is a part of Creditstar Group, this doesn’t seem concerning.
2. Main risks
In the following, we go through some of the main risks of using Lendermarket that we have considered:
Loan default risk
When you invest in P2P loans, there is a risk that the borrower will not be able to repay his loan. In that case, your investment is usually lost.
At Lendermarket, you can invest in loans with a Buyback Guarantee to protect you against the loan default risk.
When you invest in loans with a Buyback Guarantee, the loan originator is required to buy back the loan if it becomes more than 60 days overdue.
A thing you must be aware of with the Buyback Guarantee is that it is dependent on the solvency of the loan originator. So if the loan originator goes bankrupt, the guarantee will be useless.
Loan originators risk
The loan originators also pose a risk to investors. If they are not in control of their finances, have poor management, or the like, then they run the risk of going bankrupt like any other business.
On Lendermarket, you will currently be able to find four only loan originators:
- Creditstar Group
- Credory
- CrediFace
- QuickCheck
The financial situation of the Creditstar Group is great, and the company has been profitable for multiple years in a row.
According to its annual report, the company made a net profit of €5,417,000 in 2021.
Lendermarket is very transparent about the financials of Creditstar, and you are able to find much more information about the loan originator on the platform’s website.
Financial turndown risk
As P2P investing is a newer thing in the investment world, it can be difficult to predict how a financial turndown would affect this form of investment. As a starting point, it is, therefore, a really bad idea to invest your entire investment portfolio in P2P investments.
Therefore, many investors also diversify into more traditional forms of investment such as equities, bonds, and real estate.
Since investing is an individual thing, we obviously do not know what will be best for you. But if you put together your investment portfolio, make sure that it reflects your knowledge of the investments in it, as well as your own risk appetite. If in doubt about how to do so, make sure to seek help from a professional investment planner.
Is Lendermarket safe?
As Lendermarket is backed by shareholders of a very profitable finance company, we think that they are financially safer than most other platforms.
However, factors such as a lack of knowledge about how a financial turndown will affect the P2P lending industry are also risk factors that are worth considering.
Our experience with Lendermarket
Lendermarket offers an excellent investment experience. The platform is overall very easy to use.
We feel in safe hands as the loans are from a great lending company. But at times we have experienced a bit many delayed loans. With that said, there have been no issues with the Buyback Guarantee to buy these back.
The auto-invest feature does its job but is not out of the ordinary.
Both depositing and withdrawing funds on Lendermarket are fairly easy. The processing only takes a few days. The only thing to be aware of is that they only accept transfers in euros and with SEPA transfers.
Lendermarket reviews on Trustpilot
Trustpilot is a great place to learn what other people think of Lendermarket. We have collected some bad and some good Lendermarket reviews from Trustpilot for you to take a closer look at:
Best Lendermarket alternatives
Not sure Lendermarket is the right choice for you? Then there are also some good Lendermarket alternatives to consider. The following are some of our favorites:
Even if you use Lendermarket, it might actually be a good idea to take a closer look at some of the above platforms. By using multiple platforms, you can reduce your platform risk and diversify your portfolio further.
Lendermarket vs Mintos
A lot of investors have asked about Lendermarket vs Mintos (one of the most popular P2P platforms). In the following, we review the similarities and differences:
On both platforms, you will be able to find Creditstar loans. But on Lendermarket you can invest in them with a slightly better return than on Mintos. This is due to the fact that Lendermarket is a part of Creditstar Group. With that said, Lendermarket doesn’t offer much else than loans from Creditstar.
In conclusion, Lendermarket is the best option if you want the best return on Creditstar bonds and loans, whereas Mintos is the best option for broader diversification into the P2P lending market.
Conclusion of our Lendermarket review
Lendermarket is one of the best P2P lending platforms on the market right now. The platform is part of an experienced and profitable finance company that has existed since 2008.
They offer one of the highest average annual returns in the industry at around 15%.
You will find multiple loan originators on the platform. Currently, you can invest in loans from Creditstar, Credory, CrediFace, and QuickCheck.
This makes it possible to diversify your portfolio and lower your loan originator risk. The loans offered are both real estate and consumer loans.
The platform has the necessary features such as a Buyback Guarantee and an auto-invest feature (which is more or less a standard feature).
Lendermarket has been well received by investors across the internet on Trustpilot, blogs, forums, Reddit, and social media.
Overall Lendermarket is a great platform with great returns and great potential for the future.
