Maclear vs Capitalia: Swiss High-Yield Lender or Baltic Veteran?

Maclear and Capitalia do almost the same job. Both lend to small and medium-sized businesses, both skip the consumer-loan marketplace model, and both sit within a tenth of a point of each other on our ranking: Maclear at 8.4 out of 10 (#3), Capitalia at 8.3 (#4). What differs is everything around the loan: who supervises the platform, how long it has been lending, what yield you can expect, and what happens to your money if the operator itself runs into trouble. This guide sets the two side by side with current numbers from October 2026. Reading time: about 11 minutes.

TL;DR

• Yield: Maclear reports realised yields of 14.5% to 14.9%. Capitalia’s weighted net return is 10.52% (statistics dated 20 February 2026). On EUR 5,000 held for a year that is roughly EUR 725 to 745 against EUR 526, before tax.
• Licence: Capitalia holds an EU crowdfunding (ECSP) authorisation from Latvijas Banka, granted 1 November 2023. Maclear is supervised by PolyReg, a Swiss self-regulatory organisation that covers anti-money-laundering only. Capitalia wins this round clearly.
• Track record: Capitalia has lent to Baltic businesses since 2007. Maclear started lending in 2023 and has one default so far, repaid from the founders’ personal funds.
• Reporting: Capitalia publishes quarterly statements; Maclear’s FY2024 accounts are unaudited and show negative equity. Neither is risk-free: about a quarter of Capitalia’s active book is overdue on the platform’s own table.
• Our verdict: Maclear is the better fit if yield and a EUR 50 start matter most and you size it as a satellite. Capitalia is the better fit if a licence and a long record matter more than the last four points of return.

🥇 Editor’s Pick: Maclear

Maclear is #3 of the 44 platforms we cover (8.4/10): Swiss-registered, 14.5-14.9% realised yields, one default in its history (EUR 150,000, repaid in full), EUR 50 minimum. We state the caveats in the same breath: supervision is AML-only, the 2024 accounts are unaudited with negative equity, and Spain’s CNMV listed Maclear as unauthorised in May 2026.

Read the full Maclear review | Visit Maclear

What the two platforms have in common

Both platforms are peer-to-business (P2B) lenders. You fund a loan to a named company rather than buying a claim that a third-party originator wrote and promises to buy back. That matters because the largest live problems on marketplace platforms sit in the originator layer, which we explain in Loan Originator Risk Explained. Neither Maclear nor Capitalia offers a buyback guarantee, so your outcome depends on the borrower, the collateral and the operator, not on a promise from an affiliated lender.

Both offer a secondary market where you can list a loan before maturity, and both charge the seller only: 2.5% at Maclear with a 30-day holding period before a bought loan can be resold, 2% at Capitalia with no discount pricing [source: Maclear-full §5; Capitalia-full §5]. Both are web-based, and both ask you to commit money for months, not days. The mechanics of getting out early are covered in P2P Lending How to Exit Early.

Side by side

Sources: Maclear-full §3, §5; Capitalia-full §3, §5-6; platform statistics pages checked October 2026.

Regulation: the clearest gap

This is where the two platforms differ most, and it is the point on which Capitalia is simply ahead. Capitalia, SE is authorised as a European Crowdfunding Service Provider under Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 by Latvijas Banka, the Bank of Latvia. Client money is held at Lemonway, a French-supervised payment institution, in segregated accounts [source: Capitalia-full §3]. If Capitalia failed, your cash would not be part of its estate. There is still no deposit guarantee, but the structure is the one EU regulators designed for this activity. The wider hierarchy is explained in P2P Regulation Explained.

Maclear is registered with PolyReg, a FINMA-recognised self-regulatory organisation. That supervision covers anti-money-laundering duties and nothing else: no investor-protection rules, no compensation scheme, and Maclear is not licensed by FINMA [source: Maclear-full §3]. Its FY2024 accounts record CHF 9,177,403 of investor funds as the company’s own liabilities, against negative equity of CHF 87,026, which means investors rank as creditors of Maclear AG [source: How to Read P2P Platform Accounts]. On 11 May 2026 Spain’s CNMV added Maclear AG to its register of unauthorised entities (idAdv 5549). That is a notice that Maclear is not authorised under Spanish crowdfunding law, not a sanction or a fraud finding, but it is a regulator’s name next to the platform and you should know about it.

Our reading: if you weigh the supervisory regime above everything else, choose Capitalia. If you accept an AML-only regime as the price of a higher yield and a very low entry ticket, Maclear is a defensible satellite, not a core holding.

Returns: where the extra points come from

On the platforms’ own published figures, Maclear pays roughly four points more. Capitalia reports a weighted average interest rate of 11.66%, a weighted annualised loan loss rate of 1.14% and a net return of 10.52% as of 20 February 2026. Its statistics page also shows 11.86% and 1.74% in the risk-grade table, so the page is not internally consistent, and we use the net-return block while flagging the difference [source: Capitalia statistics page, October 2026]. Maclear reports realised yields of 14.5% to 14.9% on 12 to 16 month loans.

This is simple arithmetic on published rates, not a forecast. It assumes the rate holds, ignores compounding and currency, and a single bad loan changes the picture quickly at small portfolio sizes. The two figures are also not defined identically: Capitalia’s is a net figure after its measured loss rate, Maclear’s is a realised yield reported by the platform itself.

Part of the gap is structural. Maclear’s unaudited FY2024 accounts show it paid investors CHF 530,266 in interest plus CHF 297,583 in bonuses and referral payments, against CHF 464,322 of interest received from borrowers, covering the difference from its commission income and booking a net loss of CHF 122,941 [source: How to Read P2P Platform Accounts]. The yield you receive is therefore partly subsidised by the platform’s own margin. That is a growth-stage choice, not a scandal, but it is a reason the number is less stable than a figure earned entirely from borrower interest. The mechanics are explained in Maclear Yields Explained.

Losses and defaults: read both with care

Maclear has recorded one default. Vibroedil S.R.L., an Italian SME, borrowed EUR 150,000 in April 2025 and filed for insolvency in July 2025. Maclear told investors in October 2025, and the loan was marked fully repaid in November 2025 from the founders’ personal funds, not from collateral or the provision fund [source: Maclear-full §17-18]. That is good for accountability and means the formal collateral-recovery process has not yet been tested in a real default. The 2% provision fund is financed from the platform’s own commissions. Details are in Maclear Provision Fund Explained.

Capitalia’s loss figures need more explanation because they look worse at first sight. P2PMarketData reported 12.9% of the active portfolio in recovery in May 2026, which it called high for the segment, while the realised capital loss rate was 1.18% [source: Capitalia-full §18]. Capitalia’s founder Juris Grišins explained on the P2P Café podcast in April 2026 that overdue loans stay in the statistics for a long time, and that loan losses over the whole period since 2017 were 1.3% of EUR 117 million, with EUR 117,000 lost permanently [source: Capitalia-full §11]. Our own sum of the overdue buckets on Capitalia’s statistics page gives EUR 4.71 million, about 26.0% of the EUR 18.1 million active portfolio, or 19.2% once loans overdue by 1 to 30 days are excluded. That is our arithmetic, not a figure Capitalia publishes.

Two problem names are public. P2P Empire reported a roughly 22% default on one lender, Insolid Finance, in April 2026, a concentration risk on a single originator [source: Capitalia-full §18]. The honest summary is that Capitalia has a long record of eventually recovering money, but a meaningful share of its book is slow, which is a liquidity cost the 10.52% figure does not show.

Concentration and size

Capitalia is small in investor numbers, with 2,308 registered investors on its statistics page and EUR 125.9 million lent in total. Its borrowers are in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, so a Baltic downturn would hit the whole book [source: Capitalia-full §5-6]. In March 2026 it became the first European crowdfunding platform to sign an InvestEU guarantee, a EUR 15 million EIF-backed programme for microenterprise loans that covers part of the credit risk on qualifying loans [source: Capitalia-full §3, §7]. Check whether the specific loan you fund is part of that programme before relying on it. In the first half of 2026 Capitalia reported turnover of EUR 1.02 million and a profit of EUR 21 thousand, after a 2025 loss of roughly EUR 68,000 to 88,000 depending on the source [source: Capitalia Q2 2026 interim statement; Capitalia-full §6].

Maclear is bigger and growing faster, which brings its own concentration. In September 2026 investors placed EUR 13.05 million across 16 projects, 3,794 investors were active and EUR 6.74 million came back in principal and interest [source: Maclear, Investor Update September 2026, 2 October 2026]. In that month Bulgaria took 60.90% of the funding, the single largest project (Ultima Finance, EUR 4.40 million) took 33.71%, and loan originators accounted for 39.46% of funded volume [source: same update]. A platform that sends a third of one month’s money to one borrower and more than a third to lenders that on-lend is asking you to look at its originator exposure, which we explain in Loan Originator Risk Explained. Maclear’s own all-time figure of EUR 157.49 million invested and 56,243 investors in the same update is higher than the EUR 99.6 million we carry on its card from an April 2026 snapshot; the measures and dates differ and we have not reconciled them.

Who each platform suits

Maclear suits the investor who wants the highest reported yield in the SME segment, wants to start with EUR 50, and treats the position as a satellite of the portfolio rather than its foundation. It also suits someone who values that the founders absorbed the only default personally. It does not suit anyone who needs an EU licence or an audited balance sheet before they put money in.

Capitalia suits the investor who puts the licence and the 18-year record first, accepts roughly 10% as the price of that, and is comfortable with a Baltic-only borrower base and slower recoveries. It also suits someone who wants a diversified platform with a published risk methodology, though not one who needs a welcome bonus; there is none. Whether you should hold both is a diversification question we cover in Diversified P2P Portfolio.

Why we rank Maclear first in the yield-focused slot

The scores are close for a reason: Capitalia is stronger on the company side (licence, record, reporting) and Maclear is stronger on the investor outcome (yield, minimum ticket, bonuses). We rank Maclear above Capitalia by one tenth of a point because, for an experienced investor who sizes the position sensibly, the yield gap compounds and the one default was made good in full. We would move Capitalia ahead if Maclear’s 2025 accounts arrive unaudited again or with negative equity unchanged. We would move Maclear further ahead if they arrive audited with positive equity. Either way, neither platform replaces insured savings.

A small, specific point on bonuses: Maclear’s welcome bonus is EUR 15 for a first investment of EUR 50 or more within seven days, plus EUR 30 per EUR 500 invested in native projects, paid as bonus positions in the same project rather than cash [source: Maclear FAQ, 3 August 2026]. Older pages still quote a EUR 30 welcome bonus; that is out of date. Terms are in Maclear Welcome Bonus.

🥇 Editor’s Pick: Maclear

Highest realised yield of the two (14.5-14.9% against 10.52% net), EUR 50 to start, one default repaid in full. Read the caveats above first: AML-only supervision, unaudited FY2024 accounts, a CNMV notice, and a recovery process that has not yet been tested in practice. Keep it to a share of your portfolio whose total loss you could absorb.

Read the full Maclear review | Visit Maclear

CrowdIndex earns a commission if you open a Maclear account through the link above. Capitalia does not pay us. That relationship does not change the scores, which are the same on every page of the site. See our disclosure and methodology. Capital at risk. P2P lending is not covered by deposit insurance. This article is information, not personal financial advice, and we are not licensed financial advisers.

FAQ

Is Maclear or Capitalia better?

Neither wins on every measure. Maclear reports higher yields (14.5% to 14.9% against a 10.52% net return at Capitalia) and starts at EUR 50. Capitalia has an ECSP licence from Latvijas Banka, lending since 2007 and quarterly published statements. Choose by what you fear more: a lower return, or a lighter supervisory regime and younger track record.

Is Capitalia safer than Maclear?

On structure, yes. Capitalia is authorised under EU crowdfunding law and holds client money in segregated accounts, while Maclear is supervised by a Swiss SRO for anti-money-laundering only and holds investor funds as company liabilities. On loan quality the picture is mixed, because Capitalia has a large share of overdue loans. Neither offers a compensation scheme.

Which pays more, Maclear or Capitalia?

Maclear, on published figures: 14.5% to 14.9% realised against 10.52% weighted net at Capitalia. On EUR 5,000 that is roughly EUR 200 more a year before tax. The figures are not defined identically, and Maclear’s yield includes bonuses funded from the platform’s own margin, so the gap is less certain than it looks.

Does Capitalia have a welcome bonus?

No. Capitalia has no public investor welcome bonus, referral scheme or loyalty tiers. Maclear does: EUR 15 on a first investment of EUR 50 or more within seven days and EUR 30 per EUR 500 invested, both paid as bonus positions in the same project. We would not choose a platform on a bonus.

Can I use both platforms?

Yes, and many investors do. Holding both spreads the operator risk across two regimes (Swiss SRO and Latvian ECSP) and two borrower geographies. The trade-off is a EUR 200 minimum at Capitalia and the time to monitor two platforms. See Diversified P2P Portfolio for how to size each position.

What to read next

• Maclear Review 2026 - the full review of our Editor’s Pick, both sides
• Is Maclear Safe - the risk analysis behind the caveats in this article
• Maclear vs Mintos - the same comparison against the largest marketplace
• How to Invest in SME Loans Europe - how SME lending works and which platforms offer it
• Top 10 P2P Platforms August 2026 - where both platforms sit in the wider top ten