By Daniel Brenner, Senior Editor · Updated 2026-09-01 VIAINVEST Review - Strong Latvian Licence, Every Loan From One Group
Latvian platform operated by SIA Viainvest, an investment firm licensed by Latvijas Banka since September 2021. It offers the strongest licence category available in EU peer-to-peer lending, including a €20,000 investor compensation scheme. What you buy is not a loan but a note: an asset-backed security issued by a group subsidiary. Every underlying loan is originated by a company inside VIA SMS Group, and there is no secondary market.
What is VIAINVEST in 60 seconds
VIAINVEST is a Latvian investment platform where you buy notes rather than loans. A group subsidiary called SIA “VIAINVEST Assets” buys the claim rights on a pool of consumer loans, takes a pledge over those receivables, and issues securities against the pool. Each pool gets an ISIN (the standard international identifier for a security, assigned here by Nasdaq Riga) and appears on the platform as an offer. You buy a share of that pool from €50 and receive your proportional share of principal and interest once a month. If a borrower falls more than 60 days behind, the loan originator is contractually obliged to buy the loan back from the issuer. All of the originators are companies inside VIA SMS Group, the same group that owns the platform. There is no secondary market: the notes trade only on VIAINVEST, and in practice you hold them until maturity.
Strengths
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The strongest licence category available in EU peer-to-peer lending. SIA Viainvest holds an investment firm licence from Latvijas Banka (No. 27-55/2023/2), valid since 28 September 2021, covering order reception and transmission, order execution, portfolio management, placing of financial instruments, and custody. This is the MiFID II regime, the EU’s main investment-firm rulebook, which is a materially higher bar than the ECSP crowdfunding licence most competitors hold and far higher than the Swiss self-regulatory membership that Maclear operates under. The licence brings VIAINVEST into the Latvian investor protection system: if the firm becomes unable to meet its obligations, eligible investors can claim up to €20,000 each under EU Directive 97/9/EC. That cover applies to platform-side failure and misappropriation of client assets. It does not cover a borrower who simply stops paying. Client money is held in a segregated account at BluOr Bank AS, separate from the company’s own funds.
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The instrument is a real, prospectus-based security with a named issuer under supervision. SIA “VIAINVEST Assets” (reg. No. 40203339586) has been on the Latvijas Banka issuer register since 19 July 2022, with base prospectuses approved in 2022, 2023, 2024 and most recently 21 May 2025. Every offer comes with a Base Prospectus and Final Terms that set out the underlying loans, interest rate, maturity and repayment schedule. This is a stronger legal wrapper than the assignment-of-claim contracts that most P2P platforms still use, and it is what makes the €20,000 compensation scheme applicable, because the scheme covers securities investments. It also means the platform migrated away from its own pre-2022 assignment model, a transition that Latvijas Banka forced and then penalised for being late (see Things to Watch).
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Passported into ten EEA markets, with an audited and adequately capitalised operating entity. The licence has been notified into Germany, Spain and Portugal (April 2024), Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Italy and the Netherlands (August 2024) and Lithuania (February 2025). SIA Viainvest itself is audited by BDO. Its FY2025 accounts show a net profit of €228,361 and equity of €2,213,605 after an €800,000 capital injection from the parent, with a capital ratio well above requirement, per P2P Empire and re:think P2P reporting on the audited report. The platform charges no fees for investing, deposits or withdrawals, and the entry point is €50.
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Loan originator performance is published quarterly, by country, including the bad numbers. The Q2 2026 originator report gives net portfolio and 90-day-plus non-performing figures for each lending entity: Latvia €50.38M portfolio against €79,996 non-performing, Sweden €17.38M against €1.22M, Czechia €4.64M against €1.70M, Romania €0.37M against €1.16M. Publishing a Romanian book where arrears exceed the remaining portfolio is not flattering, and most competitors in our coverage do not disclose at this granularity. The platform also announced and completed full exits from Poland (31 October 2023, after a Consumer Credit Act amendment made the model unworkable) and Vietnam and the Philippines (11 April 2024), repaying investors in each case.
Things to Watch
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Every loan comes from the platform’s own group, and the group is the only thing standing behind the buyback. VIAINVEST’s own FAQ states it plainly: SIA “VIAINVEST Assets” is a VIA SMS Group subsidiary, and “VIA SMS Group subsidiaries are the originators of the underlying loans”. There is no external originator on the platform and never has been. The consequence is that platform risk, issuer risk and credit risk are the same risk. Spreading €10,000 across twenty different note issues looks like diversification on the dashboard, but all twenty depend on the solvency of one corporate family. The FAQ is also candid that the safety net has a floor: “If the loan originator is not able to honor its liability, the Buyback Obligation is also at risk.” Note that an earlier version of the platform’s security page reportedly promised that VIA SMS Group would assume an originator’s liabilities in that situation. We could not find that promise on the current site, and the two statements point in opposite directions. Until the current Terms and Base Prospectus are checked, assume the weaker version.
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A regulator sanction in 2022 with two separate grounds. On 11 October 2022 the Latvian regulator (then FKTK, now merged into Latvijas Banka) issued a warning under the Financial Instruments Market Law and the Law on Investment Firms, plus a fine of €21,277.58 for breaches of anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing and sanctions risk management requirements. The warning related to failing to complete, on time, the plan to phase out the old assignment-of-claim model after the 2021 licence; the fine related to an internal control system that had not been brought into compliance. The sanction remains listed as in force on the Latvijas Banka register. It is the only entry in that register’s sanctions block for this firm, so nothing has been added since, but a licensed investment firm being fined for AML control failures four years ago is a governance signal worth weighing.
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No secondary market, and no announced plan for one. The platform’s own disclosure states that its instruments “may be traded only on the VIAINVEST platform” and that investors “may not be able to sell their financial instruments before maturity”. In practice this means your money is committed until the notes amortise. Reviewers report loans being extended, turning what looked like a six-month position into a much longer hold. Two 2026 review sites (Jean Galea, Marco Schwartz) list a secondary market as available; the platform’s own documents and the other reviewers we checked say there is none, and we treat those two as unreliable on this point.
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Advertised return, headline statistics and group accounts all need discounting. The homepage advertises “up to 13.3%” in one place and “up to 13%” in another, both undated and both sourced to “our own internal records”. Independent measurement lands lower: 11.15% internal rate of return over seven years (re:think P2P, portfolio since exited), 11.83% net (Marco Schwartz), around 11% (P2P Empire). The gap is explained by the maximum-versus-average framing, Latvian withholding tax deducted at source, and idle cash. The other headline numbers are stale or contested: the site claims 47,000 registered investors while its own July 2026 blog post says 48,147, and claims €23M interest paid while P2P Empire counts €20.76M. On the group, the last confirmed audited consolidated year is FY2023; no consolidated FY2024 or FY2025 filing was visible on Lursoft as of 1 September 2026, and the FY2023 release itself was reissued the day after publication “due to data inaccuracies”. Trustpilot sits at 2.7 out of 5 across 51 reviews (checked 1 September 2026), a thin sample against roughly 48,000 registered accounts, with recurring complaints about payments stuck in processing and slow support.
How It Works
- Register and pass the assessments. Open an account at viainvest.com. You must be at least 18 and a citizen or resident of an EEA country. As a MiFID II investment firm, VIAINVEST runs an appropriateness and suitability questionnaire covering your knowledge, experience, financial situation and risk tolerance.
- Verify identity and fund the account. Complete online identity verification (KYC, the standard identity and source-of-funds check). Deposit euros by SEPA transfer from your own EU bank or licensed payment institution account. Funds are held in a segregated account at BluOr Bank AS and typically credited within two working days.
- Choose your notes. Browse the primary market and invest from €50 per offer, or set up Auto-invest with rules for interest rate, remaining term and amount. Pre-set strategies are available for investors who do not want to configure rules. Each offer comes with Final Terms and a Key Information Document.
- Receive monthly payments. Principal and interest are distributed once a month on the date set in the Final Terms, proportionally to your share of the pool. Latvian withholding tax is deducted at source on the interest portion only: 5% for EU and EEA tax residents, 0% for Lithuania with a residency certificate, and 25.5% by default for everyone else including Latvian residents.
- Hold to maturity. There is no secondary market. If a borrower goes more than 60 days past due, the originating VIA SMS company is obliged to repurchase the loan from the issuer at principal plus accrued interest. Withdrawals of uninvested cash can be requested at any time, minimum €50, back to the bank account you deposited from.
Who VIAINVEST Is For
VIAINVEST suits an investor who wants the strongest available EU regulatory wrapper on a consumer-credit yield of roughly 11% net, understands that the €20,000 compensation scheme protects against the platform failing rather than against borrowers defaulting, and is willing to accept a fully illiquid position. The prospectus-based note structure, segregated client money, quarterly originator disclosure and audited operator are all genuinely above the segment average. The €50 minimum keeps the entry cost low.
It is the wrong platform if you want diversification across independent lenders, because there are none. It is also wrong if you may need your money back at short notice, if you want a long clean regulatory record (the 2022 AML fine is on the public register), or if you want to model your own exit, because there is no market to exit into. Investors who want group-level transparency should note that the consolidated accounts of VIA SMS Group, the entity whose solvency the whole structure depends on, were last confirmed for financial year 2023.
Compared to Alternatives
VIAINVEST vs. Maclear. These two sit at opposite ends of the regulatory scale. Maclear operates under a Swiss self-regulatory organisation membership that covers anti-money-laundering compliance only, with no investor compensation scheme, and its collateral recovery process has not been operationally tested in a real default. VIAINVEST holds a full Latvijas Banka investment firm licence with €20,000 of compensation cover and a supervised note issuer. On the other side of the ledger, Maclear lends to independent European SME borrowers that are unrelated to its owners, while every euro on VIAINVEST is lent by a VIA SMS company. Yields are broadly comparable once VIAINVEST’s advertised 13.3% is discounted to the measured 11%. If your first concern is what happens if the platform itself fails, VIAINVEST is the safer wrapper. If your first concern is who actually owes you the money, Maclear gives you borrowers that are independent of the platform’s owners.
VIAINVEST vs. Mintos. Mintos holds the same category of Latvian investment firm licence with the same €20,000 compensation cover, so on regulatory grounds they are equivalent. Everything else favours Mintos for a core allocation: dozens of independent loan originators competing on price, a working secondary market, a ten-year operating history including the public stress of the 2022 Russia and Ukraine originator crisis, and disclosure at scale. Mintos average yields of roughly 8% to 11% are below VIAINVEST’s measured 11%, and that gap is essentially the price of independence between platform and lender. A reasonable comparison is that Mintos is a diversified marketplace and VIAINVEST is a single-issuer product wearing a marketplace interface.
VIAINVEST vs. Twino. This is the closest structural peer in our coverage and the fairest comparison. Both are Latvian, both hold Latvijas Banka investment firm licences with €20,000 compensation, both are owned by a lending group that also originates every loan on the platform, and both convert those loans into securities. Twino has the longer track record and larger cumulative volume but carries unresolved Russia exposure from 2022 and weak public sentiment. VIAINVEST has no Russia legacy, publishes originator-level arrears quarterly, and has cleanly exited three markets (Poland, Vietnam, Philippines) with investors repaid, which is a small but real stress test passed in public. Against that, VIAINVEST carries a 2022 regulator sanction that Twino does not, and Twino offers a secondary market where VIAINVEST offers none. We rank them close together and above neither with confidence.
Bottom line on competitors. VIAINVEST is a well-wrapped product built on a narrow base. The licence, the issuer registration, the segregated accounts and the compensation scheme are all real and verifiable. They protect you from the platform misbehaving. They do not change the fact that one group originates the loans, guarantees the buyback and runs the platform, and that if that group has a bad year you have no exit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly do I own when I invest on VIAINVEST? You own asset-backed securities, commonly called notes, issued by SIA “VIAINVEST Assets” with an ISIN assigned via Nasdaq Riga. You do not own the underlying loan and you have no direct claim against the borrower. The issuer buys the claim rights against the borrower from the loan originator and takes a pledge over the loan receivables, and your note is a claim on that structure. Practically this changes three things: the €20,000 investor compensation scheme applies because the scheme covers securities; each offer comes with a Base Prospectus and Final Terms that are legally binding disclosure documents; and your income is taxed as securities interest with Latvian withholding tax deducted at source before you are paid.
How much tax is deducted, and can I reclaim it? Tax is withheld by VIAINVEST on the interest portion only, not on principal repayments. The standard rate is 5% for EU and EEA tax residents, applied without any paperwork. Lithuanian tax residents pay 0% with a residency certificate. Residents of Switzerland, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan and several other treaty countries pay 10% with a certificate and 25.5% without one. Latvian residents and everyone else pay 25.5%. Whether you can credit the Latvian withholding against tax at home depends on your own country’s treaty with Latvia, so check with a tax adviser.
Am I protected if VIAINVEST fails? Up to €20,000 per investor under the Latvian Investor Protection Law, which implements EU Directive 97/9/EC. The cover applies where the investment firm cannot meet its obligations to you, for example insolvency or misappropriation of client assets, and it applies per investor regardless of how many accounts you hold. It does not cover investment losses. If borrowers stop paying and the VIA SMS originator cannot honour the buyback, that is credit risk and the compensation scheme does not apply.
Can I sell before maturity? No. VIAINVEST has no secondary market and has not announced one. Its own disclosure states the instruments may be traded only on the VIAINVEST platform and that investors may not be able to sell before maturity. Treat every investment as held to the end of its schedule, and be aware that reviewers report loans being extended beyond their original term.
Are all the loans really from one group? Yes. The platform’s FAQ states that the issuer is a VIA SMS Group subsidiary and that VIA SMS Group subsidiaries originate all the underlying loans. As of the Q2 2026 originator report there were four active lending entities, in Latvia, Sweden, Czechia and Romania. No external originator has been listed on the platform.
Bottom Line
VIAINVEST has the licence, the compensation scheme, the segregated client money and the audited operator that most of the European P2P segment lacks, and it discloses originator arrears quarterly including the ugly Romanian numbers. Those are real advantages. They are attached to a structure where a single corporate group originates every loan, issues every security, guarantees every buyback and runs the platform, with no secondary market to exit through, a 2022 regulator fine for AML control failures on the public record, and consolidated group accounts last confirmed for 2023. Our view is that this belongs in a diversified portfolio only as a small satellite position, sized on the assumption that VIA SMS Group is the single point of failure, and only for investors who genuinely do not need the money back before maturity.
Affiliate disclosure. CrowdIndex earns a commission when readers sign up to platforms through links on this page. This does not affect our editorial assessment. VIAINVEST’s ranking on CrowdIndex is based on the editorial criteria documented on our Methodology page. We last reviewed this article on September 1, 2026.
