What is Lendermarket?
Lendermarket is a P2P lending platform based in Dublin and operating since 2019. You contract with Lendermarket Limited, a company registered in Ireland, which also lists offices in Tallinn, Berlin and Madrid. Most of the loans on offer are consumer loans from the companies of Creditstar Group, an Estonian consumer-lending group with the same owner as Lendermarket.
The platform you join today, known as Lendermarket 2.0, is a relaunch. From 2022 to 2024, Creditstar’s liquidity problems left many investors’ repayments stuck as pending payments. The platform then got an EU crowdfunding licence from the Central Bank of Ireland in December 2024 and closed the original platform on 31 December 2025, saying it had resolved all obligations in full with interest. My account dates from January 2026, so everything I report here happened on the relaunched platform.
How does Lendermarket work?
Lendermarket lists loans made by loan originators and lets you invest in them in two legally different ways, which it marks on every listing. Through its unregulated service, you buy a loan originator’s claim on a consumer borrower under an assignment agreement, and the claim is yours from the day you sign. Through its regulated service, the only one its crowdfunding licence covers, you lend to the loan originator itself, unsecured, per its services statement.
Repayments travel from the borrower to the loan originator and on to your Lendermarket account. Money held up on that route shows in your account as a pending payment.
Every loan on offer on 19 October 2026 carried a buyback obligation, under which the loan originator buys back a loan once its borrower has missed payments for 60 days.
Lendermarket earns from the loan originators whose loans it lists.
What you can invest in
Lendermarket offers three kinds of investment in November 2026, each from €10 a loan.
| Investment | What you own | Minimum |
|---|
| Loan claims | A loan originator’s claim on a consumer borrower, assigned to you through the unregulated service | €10 a loan |
| Loans to loan originators | An unsecured loan to the company behind the listing, through the regulated service | €10 a loan |
| Auto Invest FLEX | Loan claims from one loan originator, running two to six years, with a conditional early exit | €10 a loan |
None of the three is a security. What you own rests on the agreement you sign for each loan, which you can read before you buy. FLEX was marketed at up to 10.5% in October 2026, and its three portfolios, from Creditstar Spain and Monefit Estonia, paid 12.5–13.5% on 15 August 2026 and 9.5–10.5% on 21 October for the same loan terms.
What return can you expect on Lendermarket?
While Lendermarket’s statistics page advertises up to 15% a year and gives a weighted average interest rate of 13.46%, my own account earned about 8.7% a year without bonuses from January to October 2026.
Lendermarket’s rates hold so far, while Creditstar Group keeps paying, and two things took my 8.7% below the 13.46% average:
- My limit of 90 days left on each loan. With no way to sell a loan on Lendermarket, I’ve kept to loans with 90 days or less left, at 9% or more from Creditstar’s companies and 11% or more on the regulated service, where you lend to the loan originator itself, so each loan I buy ends within 90 days unless it runs late. In October 2026, every loan with 90 days or less left to run offered 9%, the 12% loans had close to two years left, and 14% came only with more than three years. Creditstar Group’s companies made most of the money on offer at each of those rates, so a higher rate on Lendermarket mostly buys a longer loan from the same group.
- Payment timing and cash waiting to be reinvested, €9.46 in October, which kept my 8.7% just under the 9% rate. None of the gap was losses.
My Lendermarket account held €1,090.79 in October 2026, from the €990 I deposited, after €61.52 of interest and €39.27 of bonuses. The bonuses, two-fifths of my €100.79 profit, were the €10 sign-up portfolio, a €9.27 welcome cashback paid the day after my 90-day window closed and a €20 bonus. With them, my return on that one deposit was 14.3% a year, a lift from sign-up bonuses paid once.
Lendermarket is tied for the highest Returns score of the 21 platforms I’ve reviewed, 5.0 out of 5. The score rests on what investors kept last year and this year, not on my own account and not on the risk of losing money, which Is Lendermarket safe? covers.
Returns projection
What might you earn on Lendermarket?
My XIRR without bonuses (8.7%)
€1,518
Loans with 90 days or less left (9%)
€1,539
Loans with more than three years left (14%)
€1,925
Constant annual compounding, before any loss. The 9% and 14% are the rates on loans on offer on 19 October 2026, not measured returns, and a 14% loan can't be sold during the three years or more it runs. Any P2P investment can lose value.
Is Lendermarket safe?
Lendermarket protects your money against a late borrower but not against a failure of Creditstar Group, whose companies made 99% of the loans on offer in October 2026 and owe and guarantee their buyback. Your loan claims and uninvested cash are kept apart from Lendermarket’s own assets, and its EU licence covers the 1% of loans it marks as regulated. No deposit guarantee or investor compensation scheme covers the money you invest. The platform’s statistics page shows a 0.00% default rate, and its live statistics put 9.18% of the money outstanding 1–60 days late on 19 October 2026. No loan in my own account had lost money by 22 October 2026. The risk in the assets you hold remains fully yours.
Lendermarket has the 14th-highest Safety score of the 21 platforms I’ve reviewed, 1.7 out of 5. The score rests mostly on how Lendermarket is built, with your claims and cash held apart from its own assets and a buyback guaranteed by the group that makes almost every loan, and partly on a record in which that group’s liquidity problems held up investors’ repayments from 2022 to 2024 before they were settled. A licence claim about Creditstar that Creditstar’s own profile contradicts also counts against it, and so do two versions of its rules that are live at once.
Is Lendermarket regulated?
Yes, Lendermarket is regulated as a European crowdfunding service provider in Ireland, for its regulated service only. The Central Bank of Ireland has authorised Lendermarket Limited since 17 December 2024, per its register of crowdfunding service providers, and the licence is passported to the other 26 EU countries. Lendermarket is one of 6 of the 21 platforms I’ve reviewed licensed under the EU’s crowdfunding regulation, ECSP, as of September 2026.
The licence covers only the loans Lendermarket marks as regulated. On 19 October 2026, that was 49 of the 5,071 loans on offer and 17% of the money, and none of the 49 had less than 242 days left to run. The other loans were claims sold through a service that Lendermarket’s services statement calls “not a regulated financial service”, which gives you none of the crowdfunding regulation’s protections. On 15 August 2026, the regulated listings held 3 loans against 2,814 claims. On 22 October, 98.7% of my invested money sat in Creditstar Spain claims on the unregulated service.
What happens if Lendermarket fails?
Your loan claims and uninvested cash on Lendermarket stay yours if Lendermarket itself fails, because the claims are assigned to you and the cash is held in trust for you. The Platform Rules keep uninvested cash in a client money trust account, apart from Lendermarket’s own bank accounts, under a trust deed that holds it “upon trust absolutely” for each investor and can’t be changed once Lendermarket is insolvent. In August 2026 the deposit details in my account pointed to Fire Financial Services, an Irish payment institution, not a bank. A loan through the regulated service is a debt the loan originator owes you, which Lendermarket’s failure wouldn’t cancel either.
No one is named in Lendermarket’s rules to take over its work if it fails, and the rules bar you from dealing with a loan originator or collecting from it yourself.
No deposit guarantee or investor compensation scheme covers money invested through Lendermarket, per its risk disclosure statement. The rules also exclude Lendermarket’s liability for the loss of any money you invest, and at sign-up you promise not to hold it liable for any loss you suffer as a user.
The 2025 annual report on Lendermarket’s website carries no income statement, balance sheet or auditor’s report, though Lendermarket Limited files accounts with the Irish companies register. How much loss the platform itself could absorb can’t be read from what it publishes.
Loan originators
Lendermarket listed loans from six loan originators and one direct borrower on 19 October 2026. Four of the six were Creditstar Group companies. Creditstar Spain made 89% of the loans on offer and Monefit Estonia 9%, and with Creditstar Sweden and Creditstar Denmark the group made 99% of the loans and 83% of the money left to buy. Aiffin Drive, the direct borrower, had 12.6% of the money, and Flowpay, from the Czech Republic, and OK Credit, from Moldova, 4.5% between them.
SA Financial Investments OÜ wholly owns both Lendermarket Limited and Creditstar Group AS, per its audited 2025 report, and its sole owner, Aaro Sosaar, is Creditstar’s chief executive. The same report lists Lendermarket, beside Mintos and Monefit SmartSaver, among the sources its group uses to fund itself. The platform listing the loans and the group borrowing through them answer to the same person.
At the end of 2025, 63% of Creditstar Group’s borrowings, €285 million, came through P2P platforms, per its audited 2025 report. The same report shows a €13.5 million profit on €85 million of equity, and net debt of 4.86 times equity, just under the 5.0 its bond terms allow before bondholders can demand immediate repayment. If you also hold Monefit SmartSaver, as I do, the two positions share one credit risk, whatever the product wrappers suggest.
Aiffin Drive, a French vehicle-rental company incorporated in 2025, made 39 of the 49 regulated loans on 19 October 2026. Its key information sheet calls the loans unsecured and leaves the company’s financial figures blank, and the Aiffin Drive loan page I opened on 21 October showed none of the company’s own money in the loan. Its parent, Aiffin SAS, guarantees the buyback by contract, but the same sheet warns that the parent sits in the same group and sector and may be short of cash exactly when its support is needed.
Lendermarket overstates the regulation of the group behind most of its loans. Its originators page says “Creditstar Group companies are regulated in the eight countries where it offers lending services”, while Creditstar’s own company profile says its credit product is “unregulated in Spain”, where Creditstar Spain made 89% of the loans on offer on 19 October 2026. A licence claim that the originator’s own profile contradicts counts against Lendermarket’s Safety score.
Buyback obligation
Lendermarket’s buyback obligation, often marketed as a buyback guarantee, protects you only as long as the loan originator behind it can pay. Under the agreements, the loan originator buys a loan back on the first business day after its borrower has missed payments for 60 days in a row, for the outstanding principal plus the interest earned until then. In the repurchase agreements I signed for loans from Creditstar Spain, Sweden and Finland, Creditstar Group AS, the group’s parent, joined as a fourth party and guaranteed the buyback “unconditionally and irrevocably”.
The buyback’s clock is longer than 60 days. The same agreements let the loan originator extend a loan six times by 30 days each without asking you, and the 60 days count only after that, so a Creditstar loan can run about 240 days late before the buyback is owed.
By 22 October 2026, 126 of my loans had come back through the buyback, €1,181.99 of principal, 21.9% of all the principal repaid to me. Almost all of it, €1,110.00, came from Dineo, a Spanish loan originator on the regulated service, which bought back 111 of the 112 loans I held with it under a buyback agreement with no guarantor. None of my Dineo loans ended in an ordinary repayment, and eight came back within three days of purchase with no interest, which the 60-day trigger in Dineo’s agreement doesn’t explain. From Creditstar’s companies, 15 of my 535 loans came back through the buyback after running late, €71.99 of principal. They and 35 of the Dineo loans paid €5.57 of extra interest for the days they were late. The company that guarantees Creditstar’s buyback is the parent of the companies that owe it, so a failure of Creditstar Group would take the buyback and its guarantee down together and leave you holding the claims on the borrowers.
Defaults and recovery
No loan of mine on Lendermarket had lost money by 22 October 2026. That day, €24.45, 2.3% of my account, was 16–30 days late, and nothing was later. In August 2026, 4.9% of my account was late, €10.00 of it by more than 31 days.
No defaults show in Lendermarket’s own figures. Its statistics page shows a 0.00% default rate in data last updated on 10 November 2026, and its live statistics put 9.18% of the money outstanding 1–60 days late and 0.68% in pending payments on 19 October 2026. The buyback keeps the default rate at zero by taking each late loan off the books once it reaches 60 days.
A pending payment on Lendermarket is a repayment the loan originator owes you and hasn’t yet transferred, per Lendermarket’s help centre. The Platform Rules settle repayments in tranches against new investments and keep a payment pending “until additional payments are received from the Loan Originator”.
From 2022 to 2024, Creditstar’s liquidity problems left many Lendermarket investors’ repayments pending for months or longer. The platform’s about page says it “resolved all obligations in full with interest”. The freeze wasn’t a breach of contract. It was the contract.
Conflicts of interest
Lendermarket has five conflicts of interest with its investors, set out in its rules and its ownership.
- Lendermarket can change its rules at its own discretion, sometimes without notice. Rule 14.1 of the rules linked from the site footer lets it amend them “in its sole and absolute discretion”, and continuing to use the platform counts as accepting them. You can close your account only once you hold no active investments, so money in a long loan stays under whatever rules apply until the loan ends.
- Lendermarket can add fees and take them out of your repayments. The same rules give it that right in Rules 12.1 and 12.4, and a new or higher fee applies 10 days after a new price list is published, to investments made after that. The help centre names an April version without that section as the rules your account is subject to, and both files say version 7.2, effective 14 April 2026. Contradictory live versions of your rights and costs count against Lendermarket’s Safety score. The FLEX terms apply a changed exit fee to FLEX portfolios opened before the change, although the rules keep each investment on the price list it was bought under.
- Lendermarket is paid by the loan originators it lists. Its platform key information sheet says they pay it a subscription fee of up to 6% a year on the loans they raise, under agreements that aren’t public.
- Lendermarket’s owner also owns its largest loan originators. The platform that picks and lists the loans answers to the same person as the companies behind 99% of them.
- Lendermarket decides alone whether to pursue a loan originator for you. Rule 13.1 of the same rules makes it your representative for collection and enforcement “without obliging” it to act, and Rule 13.2 bars you from acting yourself.
How do you use Lendermarket?
You use Lendermarket in four steps, from signing up to choosing how your money is invested.
- Register with the sign-up form as a private or business investor.
- Verify your identity with Sumsub, which Lendermarket requires before you can deposit.
- Add money by bank transfer from an account in your own name, or by card or Apple Pay.
- Choose how your money is invested, by hand, with your own Auto Invest portfolio or with an Auto Invest FLEX portfolio.
Lendermarket is tied for the fifth-highest Usability score of the 21 platforms I’ve reviewed, 3.5 out of 5. The score rests on Lendermarket’s Auto Invest portfolios, which filter loans by interest rate, remaining term and service and run in an order of priority you set, and on the tax report you download from your account.
Opening an account
Lendermarket verifies your identity through Sumsub before you can deposit, per its help centre. I opened my account on 29 January 2026, and a €10 sign-up portfolio invested itself the same day, before I had deposited anything.
Deposits
Depositing on Lendermarket is free by bank transfer, card or Apple Pay. Only euros are accepted, and a bank transfer has to come from an account in your own name. In August 2026 the deposit page said card payments arrive instantly and bank transfers within 3 business days, into the account that holds your cash. My €990 bank transfer was credited on 30 January 2026.
Auto-invest
Lendermarket has two kinds of auto-invest, standard Auto Invest portfolios and Auto Invest FLEX.
| Way of investing | Who picks the loans | Limit per loan originator | Getting out before maturity |
|---|
| Auto Invest | You, by the rate, remaining term and service you set | None by loan originator, only a maximum per loan that you set | None, since no loan can be sold |
| Auto Invest FLEX | Lendermarket, within the one loan originator’s portfolio you pick | None, since each portfolio buys from one loan originator | An early-exit request for 3.5%, paid only once money arrives to replace yours |
| Buying by hand | You, one loan at a time | None beyond your own choices | None, since no loan can be sold |
Your own money on Lendermarket stays in cash until you set up a portfolio or buy a loan. My €990 sat in cash until 3 February 2026, my own doing, not the platform’s, while I set up my portfolios. Your portfolios are funded in the order of priority you give them, and each buys loans that match its settings up to its target size.
I run three portfolios: the sign-up portfolio with Lendermarket’s broad 1–360-day settings, one for unregulated loans at 9% or more and one for regulated loans at 11% or more, both limited to loans with 90 days or less left. On 15 August 2026, the unregulated one was 99.9% invested and had bought €3,840 of loans for an €800 target. The regulated one held €200 of loans but found nothing new to buy that day, and on 21 October it held €10 under a warning that it “may not be investing”.
Tax reports
Lendermarket provides a tax report to download from your account, as a PDF for the dates you choose. According to the help centre, the report is for information only and may not reflect your tax obligations in every country. The Statement page lists every transaction, and my export to 22 October 2026, 3,270 rows, reconciled to my balance to the cent.
Support
Lendermarket’s support works by email and a contact form, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 17:00 CET, per its contact page. Under its complaint policy, Lendermarket acknowledges a complaint within 10 working days and decides it within 30, a promise no contact of mine has tested. You can then take the complaint to Ireland’s Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman.
How fast can you get your money out of Lendermarket?
You can withdraw cash from Lendermarket for free within 3 business days, from €50. Invested money comes out only as your loans repay, because Lendermarket has no secondary market, or through an early-exit request in an Auto Invest FLEX portfolio, which is paid only once money arrives to replace yours. A repayment held up as a pending payment waits on the loan originator. With no secondary market, the term you buy is when your money comes back, which made the choice between a 96-day loan and a 1,776-day loan on 15 August 2026 the most important decision on the platform.
Lendermarket is tied for the third-lowest Liquidity score of the 21 platforms I’ve reviewed, 2.0 out of 5. The score rests on free withdrawals and loans that can’t be sold before they end, with an early exit that waits on money to replace yours and a record of repayments held up from 2022 to 2024.
Withdrawals
Lendermarket withdrawals to a bank account are free and are processed within 3 business days, though no withdrawal of mine is on record yet. A withdrawal goes to the bank account you deposited from, and the smallest is €50, or your whole balance if it’s less. Card withdrawals are free on Lendermarket’s price list, though its help centre says they carry a processing fee shown before you confirm. Your bank can take 1 to 3 more business days, per Lendermarket’s help centre.
Early exit in Auto Invest FLEX
Lendermarket’s FLEX early exit lets you ask to leave a FLEX portfolio before its loans end, for 3.5% of the amount you take out, and pays you only once money arrives to replace yours. You can request 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% or all of a portfolio, one request at a time, and each exit needs Lendermarket’s approval. The FLEX page says the money typically reaches your balance within 10 working days. The FLEX terms say Lendermarket “is not obliged to secure” the money that replaces yours, and neither Lendermarket nor the loan originator has to fund an exit from its own balance sheet. Lendermarket can reject or defer a request, and can suspend exits for “liquidity pressure”. The assignment agreement I signed with Creditstar Spain in August 2026 carries the same condition, under which an early-exit repurchase “shall become effective only if” the replacement money has actually been received.
The FLEX page promises “Exit anytime” and your money back “whenever you want it”, while the FLEX terms, which no exit request of mine has tested, say an early exit isn’t “a guaranteed right of withdrawal”.
Closing your account
You can close your Lendermarket account by asking for it once you’ve withdrawn all your available money and hold no active investments, per Lendermarket’s help centre. The Platform Rules give you no other way to end the agreement, so money in a long loan stays until the loan ends. An account that holds no investments and has made none for 6 to 12 months can be closed by Lendermarket, which then sends its cash to your bank account.
What fees does Lendermarket charge?
Lendermarket charges no fee to deposit, invest or withdraw to your bank account. The charges you can choose are a FLEX early exit fee and a processing fee that card withdrawals can carry.
Lendermarket fees and costs | Deposit fee | Free by bank transfer or card |
| Investment fee | Free |
| Early exit fee | 3.5% on FLEX of the exited amount, shown before you confirm · other investments held to maturity, no secondary market |
| Withdrawal fee | Free to your bank account or card · minimum €50 · card withdrawals may carry a processing fee |
| Currency conversion | EUR-only platform |
| Inactivity fee | Free an account with no investments made or held for 6–12 months can be closed and its cash sent to your bank |
| Withholding tax | 0% the platform withholds nothing, you declare the interest yourself |
The rules also let Lendermarket introduce fees on 10 days’ notice for new investments and take them from your repayments.
My statements to 22 October 2026 show no fee and no tax withheld. Every cent of interest, delayed interest and bonuses arrived in full and reconciles to my balance. The price of a higher rate on Lendermarket is time locked in, not a fee.
Pros and cons
What Lendermarket does well
- Your loan claims and cash on Lendermarket stay yours if Lendermarket itself fails. A claim you buy is assigned to you from the day you sign, and uninvested cash is held in trust for you, apart from Lendermarket's own money.
- Creditstar's buyback obligation has repaid, with interest, every Creditstar loan of mine that reached it. Fifteen of my 535 Creditstar loans ran late long enough to reach the buyback by 22 October 2026, and returned €71.99 of principal. Creditstar's parent, Creditstar Group AS, guarantees that buyback by contract.
- Lendermarket charges nothing to deposit, invest or withdraw to your bank. Its price list makes bank and card deposits, buying loans and bank withdrawals free, and my statements to 22 October 2026 show no fee.
- Lendermarket's supply of short loans kept my money invested. My portfolio for loans with 90 days or less left was 99.9% invested on 15 August 2026, and €9.46 of my €1,090.79 was waiting in cash on 22 October.
Where Lendermarket disappoints
- Lendermarket, the loan originators behind almost all its loans and the guarantor of their buyback answer to one owner. Creditstar Group's companies made 99% of the loans on offer on 19 October 2026, and 83% of the money. Lendermarket Limited and Creditstar Group AS are both wholly owned by a holding company whose sole owner is Creditstar's chief executive.
- Lendermarket has no secondary market, so you hold every loan until it ends. The 12–14% loans on offer in October 2026 had close to two years or more to run. FLEX's early exit costs 3.5% and pays you only once money arrives to replace yours, which neither Lendermarket nor the loan originator has to provide.
- Lendermarket's rules let your repayments wait while a loan originator is short of cash. A repayment stays pending until the loan originator pays it, and Creditstar's cash shortage held investors' repayments up this way from 2022 to 2024.
- A late Creditstar loan can run about 240 days before the loan originator's buyback obligation applies. The loan originator can extend a loan six times by 30 days without asking you, and the buyback starts only after 60 days of missed payments.
- Most loans on Lendermarket sit outside its crowdfunding licence. On 19 October 2026, 49 of 5,071 loans on offer were regulated, none with less than 242 days left. My regulated auto-invest portfolio, limited to loans with 90 days or less left, held €200 in August 2026 and €10 by October.
Who should use Lendermarket?
Lendermarket suits investors who want a small, short-term stake in Creditstar Group’s consumer loans and hold each loan until it ends.
Lendermarket suits:
- Investors who keep to the shortest loans, 9% on loans with 90 days or less left in October 2026, and hold each one to the end
- A small position sized as one group’s risk, since almost every loan comes from Creditstar Group
- Investors who want a contractual group guarantee behind each Creditstar loan’s buyback, knowing it comes from the same group
- Investors who want their loan claims and cash kept apart from the platform’s own money
Avoid Lendermarket if you are:
- Relying on the buyback to protect your capital, because the loan originators, the guarantor of their buyback and Lendermarket answer to one owner
- Expecting 12–14% with access to your money, because those rates come with loans of close to two years or more that can’t be sold
- Needing your repayments on a schedule, because Lendermarket’s rules let them wait as pending payments while a loan originator is short of cash
- Already holding Creditstar exposure elsewhere, such as Monefit SmartSaver, which funds the same group
- Looking for a licence over what you buy, because 1% of the loans on offer fell under it in October 2026
