Mintos vs a Savings Account: What the Extra Yield Is Paying For

The yield gap

As of September 2026, term deposits at major EU banks pay approximately 2.5 to 3 percent per year on balances held for six to twelve months. Mintos, the largest EU peer-to-peer lending marketplace, targets an annual return of 9 to 11 percent across its portfolio of consumer, business and real-estate loans. The difference - six to eight percentage points - represents the premium investors demand for accepting credit risk, originator risk and the absence of deposit-guarantee coverage.

A EUR 5,000 balance in a savings account earning 2.5 percent yields EUR 125 per year. The same amount on Mintos at 10 percent yields EUR 500 - EUR 375 more. At EUR 25,000, the gap widens to EUR 1,875 per year before accounting for defaults or originator events. The question is whether that extra yield compensates for the extra risk.

What EUR deposits guarantee - and what Mintos does not

EU deposit-guarantee schemes, mandated by Directive 2014/49/EU, protect up to EUR 100,000 per depositor per bank if the institution fails. The guarantee is automatic, applies to all eligible accounts and does not depend on the credit quality of the bank's borrowers. If you hold EUR 50,000 in a term deposit and the bank becomes insolvent, the scheme reimburses you within seven working days, increased to twenty in exceptional circumstances. The risk to principal is effectively zero up to the guarantee ceiling.

Mintos, regulated by Latvijas Banka under MiFID II, offers an investor compensation scheme that covers up to EUR 20,000 per investor for eligible claims against the firm. The scheme applies if Mintos itself becomes insolvent or fails to return investor assets it holds. It does not apply if a borrower defaults on a loan you funded, if an originating lender becomes insolvent without honouring buyback obligations, or if market conditions prevent you from selling a loan on the secondary market. The compensation scheme is a safety net for firm failure, not for loan-book performance.

This distinction is the single largest structural difference between a savings account and Mintos. A deposit guarantee protects you from the bank's insolvency; Mintos' compensation scheme protects you from the platform's insolvency, but you remain exposed to the credit quality of several hundred thousand individual loans and the financial health of dozens of originating lenders.

Comparing the numbers: EUR 5,000 and EUR 25,000

At EUR 5,000, the extra EUR 375 per year from Mintos amounts to a 7.5 percent uplift on the principal. At EUR 25,000, the EUR 1,875 premium is 7.5 percent again - the percentage remains constant, but the absolute amount grows with the balance. These figures assume zero defaults and stable originator performance; any borrower default not covered by buyback reduces the realised return and can eliminate the yield advantage entirely.

Use the returns calculator to model scenarios with different balances, target returns and default assumptions.

What the extra yield is paying for

The six-to-eight-point spread between deposit rates and Mintos' target return compensates investors for three categories of risk not present in deposit-guaranteed savings:

• Credit risk. Borrowers may default. Mintos originators issue loans to individuals and businesses with varying credit profiles. Default rates on consumer loans in Baltic and Eastern European markets range from single digits to mid-teens, depending on the lender's underwriting standards and the macroeconomic environment.
• Originator risk. The lender issuing the loan may become insolvent. Mintos lists loans from dozens of originators. If an originator fails, its buyback guarantees - where they exist - become worthless, and investors lose the principal invested in those loans. The 2020 and 2022 originator events at Mintos demonstrated this risk in practice.
• Liquidity risk. You may not be able to exit a position immediately. Mintos offers a secondary market where investors sell loans to one another, but liquidity depends on buyer demand. During stress events, bids dry up, discounts widen and exit becomes difficult or impossible at par.

A savings account eliminates all three risks up to EUR 100,000 per bank. Mintos requires active monitoring, diversification across originators and acceptance that the principal may decline or become illiquid. The extra yield is the market's price for accepting those conditions.

When a savings account is the better choice

EU deposit-guaranteed savings are the appropriate vehicle for three scenarios: emergency funds, short-term goals and capital you cannot afford to lose. If you need the money within six months, a savings account offers certainty of principal and next-day access. If a EUR 5,000 loss would materially affect your financial position, the 2.5 percent return and deposit guarantee are preferable to the 10 percent target and default risk on Mintos.

Most financial plans separate emergency savings - typically three to six months of expenses - from discretionary investment capital. The emergency portion belongs in deposit-guaranteed accounts regardless of the yield gap. Mintos and other P2P platforms are suitable only for the discretionary portion, and only if you accept the possibility of partial or total loss.

When Mintos may be worth the trade-off

Investors with capital beyond their emergency fund, a long enough time horizon to absorb temporary liquidity constraints and the risk tolerance to accept default losses sometimes allocate a portion of their portfolio to P2P lending. The extra yield on Mintos - if realised after defaults - can accelerate compounding over multi-year periods. A EUR 10,000 balance earning 10 percent grows to EUR 16,105 after five years; the same balance at 2.5 percent grows to EUR 11,314 - a EUR 4,791 difference.

That outcome depends on stable originator performance, manageable default rates and no platform-level disruption. The 2022 restructuring into Notes, following originator insolvencies, reset the risk framework and reminded investors that past returns do not guarantee future results. Mintos has operated since 2015, holds a MiFID II licence from Latvijas Banka and has processed over EUR 12.4 billion in cumulative loan volume across 700,000 investors. These are factual markers of scale and regulatory standing, not predictions of future performance.

Read the full assessment of whether Mintos is safe and the breakdown of how the compensation scheme actually works before committing capital.