Crowdlending returns in Europe: what each published figure counts and what an investor keeps

Updated: 1 October 2026

A crowdlending return figure can be a contractual rate, a platform average, an index or a dashboard number, and each counts different cash. This article puts the figures of Mintos, PeerBerry, Estateguru, Go & Grow, Debitum and Maclear side by side. Their fees, loss measures and tax are covered as well, as of 1 October 2026.

Return labels defined: coupon, platform average, index, NAR and XIRR

FINRA defines a bond coupon as the annual interest rate set at issuance (FINRA). That is the sense of a "rate" on a loan: a promise made at origination. Every other label below counts something that happened afterwards.

XIRR discounts each dated cash flow, so an investor who adds money in March and withdraws in October gets an XIRR that reflects those dates.

Mintos adjusts XIRR to remove compounding, shows its dashboard NAR as a nominal rate and leaves uninvested funds out of the calculation. It recognises an irrecoverable loss after recovery is finalised and the loan is marked as bad debt (Mintos help). PeerBerry's dashboard NAR runs on XIRR as well, but it includes unpaid accrued interest and bonuses and counts both invested and uninvested funds (PeerBerry help). Two investors with identical loans and identical idle cash therefore see different numbers on the two dashboards.

Published figures side by side: Mintos, PeerBerry, Estateguru, Go & Grow, Maclear and Debitum

The rows do not rank the platforms. Debitum's line shows why: the same report lists €70.20 million outstanding at the end of August, and €775,630 divided by €70,200,000 is 1.10%. That ratio is a month of interest over a month-end stock. It is not an investor return, because the denominator is not average invested capital.

Estateguru's 9.48% and 8.99% average only repaid loans, so a loan that is still unresolved does not enter them. The same statistics page counts defaults as a share of loans. In 2025 its A3 category recorded 11 defaults among 66 loans (16.67%) against an expected default rate of 0.03%. Likewise, its Baa3 category recorded 16 defaults among 176 loans (9.09%) against 0.31%.

Mintos net returns 2019 to 2024 and the two tables on one page

The Mintos net-return section shows 11.0% for 2019, 4.3% for 2020, 6.1% for 2021, -1.2% for 2022, 10.4% for 2023 and 9.3% for 2024. Mintos states that the figure follows its index definition from the table above and that no bonuses or fees are included (Mintos).

An asset-class comparison table on the same page lists 10.8% for 2023 and 10.7% for 2024 against the 10.4% and 9.3% of the net-return section. However, the page does not explain the difference. This article uses the net-return section, whose figures follow the definition above.

Idle cash and accrual: when money starts earning

Mintos states that uninvested money earns no return. Whether idle cash shows up in the displayed return depends on the platform: Mintos excludes it from dashboard NAR and PeerBerry includes it.

A worked example with assumed inputs: €10,000 at a 10% contractual rate sits uninvested for 30 days in the year. Forgone interest comes to €10,000 × 10% × 30 / 365 = €82.19, or 0.82 percentage points.

PeerBerry processes auto-invest strategies several times per day and states that how fast money is deployed depends on loan supply and demand (PeerBerry help). Maclear's FAQ of 3 August 2026 says interest starts to accrue when the funded loan is transferred to the borrower. That transfer typically takes up to 10 business days (Maclear FAQ). PeerBerry short-term loans repay principal and interest when the loan closes (PeerBerry help), so an account holding them receives no monthly payments in between.

Fees on Mintos, PeerBerry and Go & Grow

The Mintos charges come from its fees and charges help page. A sale fee applies once to the price of the position sold. Subtracting 0.85 percentage points from every holding in a yearly return therefore overstates it.

Defaults, buybacks and recovery: three loss measures

Default rates by loan count, returns by amount and cash recovered are three separate measurements. Estateguru divides defaults by the number of included loans. Its recovery report of mid-2026 records €70 million of cumulative principal recovered and €6.3 million in the first half of 2026. Recorded as well are €5.3 million of agreed future receipts (Estateguru). The three amounts cover different periods and say nothing alone about the share of defaulted principal that came back.

Buybacks name a counterparty. Mintos describes its buyback as an obligation of the lending company or other entity that depends on that company's ability to pay. It is generally triggered when a loan is more than 60 days overdue (Mintos). PeerBerry describes buyback as the originator's obligation to repurchase by the 60th day of delay. In addition, PeerBerry describes a group guarantee involving other Aventus and Gofingo companies for liabilities after an insolvency (PeerBerry help). Debitum's help pages word it in two ways. One page dated 4 December 2025 describes an option for the partner to buy back a late loan entering recovery (Debitum). However, a page dated 23 March 2026 says originators must repurchase after a lateness trigger that varies by partner (Debitum).

Maclear's FAQ of 10 September 2026 states that 2% of each successfully funded project goes to its Provision Fund, held in a segregated bank account. A borrower delay of more than three days, the FAQ adds, activates interest cover from the fund. It calls the fund available for investors' losses on interest and/or principal to the extent funds are available (Maclear FAQ).

Studies of realised crowdlending returns

A study of Bondora loans issued between 2009 and 2022 uses repayment data to May 2022. Across 62,537 strictly closed loans, it reports a mean IRR of 27.72%, with negative IRRs for 12.96% of them (academic study). Adding loans classed as current but past original maturity or unpaid for a year gives an extended sample of 105,135 loans. Those loans are treated as producing no further cash flow. Its mean IRR is -4.17%, with negative IRRs for 41.63%. The two figures describe different samples.

The Swiss Marketplace Lending Association calculates volume-weighted loan returns after fees for member loans. Its method sets expected future cash flows to zero once payments are more than 120 days overdue, and later recoveries improve the figure. The 2025 report gives the 2017 vintage of SME and consumer loans a 3.7% return at 31 December 2024 (Swiss association). The scope is Swiss member loans.

Adhami, Gianfrate and Johan analysed more than 6,000 business loans on 73 European platforms from 2012 to 2018. Promised returns were inversely related to loan risk and tenure, the authors found (Adhami et al., 30 January 2023). Those are promised yields at origination, a different measure from the realised rates above, and the three datasets cannot be merged into one market average.

Currency exposure and who bears it

Mintos says a foreign-currency investment can depreciate against the investor's home currency. According to Mintos, the lending company assumes the risk when the underlying loan currency differs from the listed Note currency. A devaluation of the underlying currency can also impair the lending company's ability to transfer payments (Mintos). Mintos's 2022 update on Russian lending companies cited exchange commissions of 12% "at the moment" and a rouble depreciation of around 30% (Mintos). That commission applied to the lenders' conversions in 2022 and is not a current Mintos fee.

Benchmarks on 1 October 2026

Eurostat scheduled the September flash estimate for 2 October 2026. A loan and a deposit differ in credit exposure and liquidity.

From gross to net: tax is a share of interest

Tax takes a percentage of interest received, which is a different unit from the percentage points of return it removes. On €10,000 earning a 10% contractual rate with every payment received, interest is €1,000:

The German line is shown before the €1,000 Sparer-Pauschbetrag, which the NRW tax office deducts from capital income. For a single filer with no other capital income, the allowance would cover all of this interest. The Spanish line assumes no other savings income. Three countries follow different logic. The UK gives a Personal Savings Allowance of £1,000 to basic-rate and £500 to higher-rate taxpayers (GOV.UK). The Netherlands applies 36% to the Box 3 taxable benefit for 2026 with €59,357 of exempt wealth per person. Box 3 is a tax on a deemed benefit from savings and investments and not on interest received (Belastingdienst). Irish Revenue's page on foreign deposit income for Irish resident and domiciled individuals gives 20% up to the standard-rate cut-off point. Above it, the rate is 40% (Revenue). Its P2P manual assigns interest on qualifying underlying P2P lending to Schedule D Case IV when withholding has been suffered. On the other hand, Case III applies when withholding has not been suffered (Revenue manual).

Calculating your own XIRR

An account-wide XIRR needs four inputs. These are every deposit and withdrawal with its date, the current value of open loans, uninvested cash, and the fees and taxes paid. Open loans enter at a stated valuation, because a return on closed loans alone leaves out the unresolved ones. Both the Estateguru repaid-loan figures and the Bondora study above show this. The XIRR function in Microsoft Excel takes the dated cash flows directly. Loan-level risks are covered in the risks guide, and the instruments behind the figures in what crowdlending is.

Crowdlending returns FAQ

Is the Mintos net return what an investor earns?

No. It is a platform-wide index of all loans on Mintos, with no fees or bonuses in it. An investor's dashboard NAR uses a different calculation, an XIRR adjusted to a nominal rate on invested principal with uninvested funds left out.

Does a platform with no fees cost nothing?

PeerBerry states that it charges no service, deposit or withdrawal fee and does not deduct investor taxes. Its dashboard NAR counts uninvested funds, so cash that waits for a loan lowers the number shown.

How much does idle cash cost?

It depends on the rate and the number of days. On €10,000, 30 idle days cost €49.32 at 6% and €115.07 at 14%.

Do I pay tax where the platform is based?

The table above shows rates by country of residence. Platforms can withhold tax. For example, Mintos offers a 5% withholding rate to eligible EU and EEA private tax residents who update their tax details. Separate rules also apply to residents of Latvia and Lithuania. Final tax in the investor's country is separate from that rate (Mintos help). PeerBerry deducts none.

Which benchmark fits a crowdlending rate?

One that matches the currency and the period. For euros, the ECB reported 2.13% on new household deposits with maturity up to one year in August 2026. For sterling, the Bank of England reported 4.24% on new individual time deposits. Euro-area inflation of 3.2% in August 2026 looks backward and says nothing about a loan's term.