Mintos vs Bondora
Mintos and Bondora have been two of the most well-known platforms for loan investing for years. Both focus on small retail investors, but their approaches are different. The editors of Investment Platforms.EU compared them on return, offer, ease of use and risks. Mintos is our winner, although we also see the advantages of Bondora.
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Please note: peer-to-peer lending involves risks, and you could lose part or all of your investment
Mintos vs Bondora
Mintos and Bondora both started with the rise of peer-to-peer lending. Mintos offers more choice, higher returns and more settings, while Bondora focuses on ease of use.
Mintos started as a platform for peer-to-peer loans, but now also offers corporate bonds, real estate, ETFs and access to a money market fund. Loans are still the main part of the platform and offer the highest gross return, but also the biggest risks. The money market fund can be accessed at any time, but the return is close to what banks offer on a savings account.
Bondora keeps it simple with Go & Grow: one fixed product with automatic management and daily access to your balance. The return is around 6 percent, which is low for peer-to-peer lending, but stable. The platform is easy to use and does not require much time or knowledge.
Offer
The offer at both platforms is very different. Mintos gives maximum freedom of choice, diversification and custom options. Bondora focuses on simplicity, speed and ease of use.
Mintos
In peer-to-peer lending, Mintos is the market leader. It gives users constant access to a large number of individual consumer loans, provided by more than 50 different lenders around the world. You can choose loans yourself or let the platform invest automatically with the Auto-Invest function.
There is a fixed profile available, but you can also set it up yourself based on interest rate, duration, lender and risk score. We tested several versions, but got the best results with the standard Mintos Core Loans strategy. Besides loans, Mintos also offers fractional bonds, real estate loans and ETFs, making it a broader investment platform.
Mintos has a wider offer. This includes more peer-to-peer loans, more settings and more types of investments
Bondora
For new investors, Bondora only offers the Go & Grow product. This is one fixed investment product where your money is automatically spread across consumer loans, mainly from Estonia, Finland and Spain. It is easy to use, but there is no freedom of choice. Investing in individual loans is only possible through the secondary market.
Returns
At the time of writing this review, the return for the editors of Investment Platforms.EU is 11.3 percent per year at Mintos and 6 percent per year at Bondora. This is only for peer-to-peer loans, because at Mintos we also invested in the money market fund.
At Bondora, some of the risks are already included in the return, and your money is usually available right away
The average net return on peer-to-peer loans is higher at Mintos, even in more difficult periods. One downside is that you deal with loan terms. This means that delays, defaults or buyback programs can affect both the term and the return. Mintos shows a risk score and status for each loan. Higher interest rates often mean higher risk.
Bondora only has one product: Go & Grow, which gives a fixed return of 6 percent per year. The editors of Investment Platforms.EU have been investing for years and find the return to be stable. The return builds up daily, and your money can be withdrawn daily, as long as the market (Bondora) allows it. But in theory there are risks: if the market or results are worse than expected, Bondora can delay or limit payouts.
Risk and guarantees
Because Mintos offers more choices, we find its system more risky. However, this strongly depends on your own decisions. Bondora offers fewer guarantees, but the diversification makes it feel more stable and predictable.
Mintos
Mintos works with dozens of lenders, each with its own risk profile and score. Many loans come with a buyback guarantee: after 60 days of delay, the lender (not Mintos itself) buys the loan back. This guarantee depends on the financial health of the lender.
Diversification helps: by investing in many loans from different lenders, you reduce the risk of one default or bankruptcy. Mintos offers good tools to achieve this automatically. Besides loans, it also offers corporate bonds, ETFs and real estate. This gives you more ways to spread your risks.
Mintos offers good tools to build diversification.
Bondora
Bondora uses strict credit selection and its own scoring model. It already takes delays and losses into account, which helps to offer stable returns even in weaker periods. It does not offer guarantees, insight into individual loans or buyback options, but the editors of Investment Platforms.EU have found the returns to be stable. In special situations, Bondora may change the return or limit withdrawals.
Regulation and supervision
There are major differences in regulation. Mintos is fully regulated as a European investment platform (MiFID II). Bondora falls under national supervision and has a simpler legal structure.
Mintos
Since August 2021, Mintos has been officially regulated as an investment firm under the European MiFID II rules. Supervision is done by the Latvian financial authority (FCMC). Mintos has an EU-wide license for investment services, which means it can operate under strict conditions in other EU countries. Thanks to this license, investors have legal protection, client funds are separated from company funds, and investors are protected in case of disputes.
Mintos follows strict European MiFID II regulation
Bondora
Bondora is supervised by the Estonian financial authority (EFSA) and has a license as a credit provider, but not as a MiFID-regulated investment platform. This means it has fewer transparency obligations than Mintos.
Go & Grow is not offered as an individual investment product, but as an internally managed fund. There is no legal obligation to show the risks or underlying assets. You invest in a claim on Bondora’s total assets, not in specific loans.
Ease of use
Mintos offers a lot of flexibility. The platform works well, but the wide range of options takes some time to get used to and affects how quickly and easily you can get started. You can set your own loan terms, interest or risk score. The dashboard is detailed, with insights into your performance. It also has a good Auto Invest tool, although it still needs a lot of input. The extra options can cause decision stress. It can also be hard to decide how much to invest in peer-to-peer loans or in other products like corporate bonds.
Bondora
Bondora Go & Grow is built for simplicity. You deposit money, and the platform takes care of the rest. No settings, no filters and fewer dashboards. Just a balance with daily interest growth. You can make automatic deposits or withdraw part of your money at any time. The whole platform focuses on ease, not control. That makes it a good choice for people who want returns without spending time on it.
Conclusion
If you invest for higher returns, Mintos seems the clear winner. It offers more options, we get better results with it, and it has more tools to adjust risks to your preferences.
Still, that is not always the best choice for everyone. If you are unsure how long you can miss your money or what risks you want to take, then Bondora Go & Grow is a very simple way to grow your money. The return is a bit lower, but your money is easier to access and the return is more predictable.
At the editorial team, we use both. Mintos is our main platform where we invest larger amounts. This is money we know we will not need for a while, and it brings the highest return. We also regularly park temporary money at Bondora, which still gives a decent return of 6 percent.
