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Post by shaudinja on Oct 18, 2016 10:58:11 GMT
Some people have already here discussed that Mintos does not look that attractive anymore as initially. I received some evidence and found out deeper reasons why Mintos might not be that great and why we might lose a lot of money. I wrote a small blog post on the topic here mintos-independent-review.blogspot.com/2016/10/peer-to-peer-lending-platform-mintos.html but main points are that loan originators are not actually independent and buyback guarantee is not backed up by anything. |
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Post by martins on Oct 18, 2016 14:28:08 GMT
Not sure what are the intentions of the author, but the blog post contains a lot of misleading and selective information.
Anyway, I would like to explicitly emphasize that in case of loans with the buyback guarantee the buyback guarantee is always provided by the respective loan originator. Mintos is a marketplace and does not provide any buyback guarantees. The rights and obligations of the parties are clearly stated in assignment agreement that is concluded for each investment.
Today we have 14 different loan originators from 6 different countries offering 6 different loan types on the Mintos marketplace. The assignment agreement is tailored for each specific case. Investors can view the exact assignment agreement for particular investment before confirming investments. The concluded agreements for each investment can be found under My Investments section.
The author is referencing an assignment agreement used for a particular case and loan type. The referenced agreement, which actually is an old template and is not used anymore, was for loans without the buyback guarantee. Therefore, the misinterpretation.
The assignment agreement for loans with the buyback guarantee reads as follows:
11.1. By conclusion of the Agreement the Loan Originator is provided with the buyback rights and the buyback obligations to the Claim, whereas the Assignee shall undertake to sell back the Claim to the Loan Originator, if the Loan Originator exercises its buyback rights or buyback obligations. The Assignee has the right to sell the Claim only to another Portal User, Mintos or the Loan Originator. If the Assignee sells the Claim to another Portal User or Mintos, it shall take place together with the buyback rights and the buyback obligations of the Loan Originator on the Claim arising from the Agreement. If the Assignee, within the scope of the Portal, sells the Claim further to another User or Mintos, the buyback rights and the buyback obligations of the Loan Originator included in the Agreement and the re-transfer obligation of the Assignee becomes binding on the new acquirer of the Claim.
11.2. If provided in the Basic Terms and Conditions, the Loan Originator shall be obliged to unilaterally exercise its buyback obligations if the Borrower delays the payments arising from the Loan Agreement by more than 60 (sixty) days. The Loan Originator has the right, but not an obligation to unilaterally exercise its buyback rights in any of the following events:
11.2.1. the Assignee has fully or partially recalled the authorization of the Loan Originator included in the Agreement or the Terms and Conditions of the Portal User;
11.2.2. pursuant to the Terms and Conditions of the Portal User Mintos has limited the Assignee’s rights to use the Portal;
11.2.3. in the event of early termination of the Agreement;
11.2.4. at the sole discretion of the Loan Originator.
Furthermore, the next clause describes how the buyback is executed which involves loan originator authorizing Mintos to transfer the buyback price from loan originator’s account to assignee’s account.
11.3. The Loan Originator has the obligation in case if the Borrower delays the payments arising from the Loan Agreement by more than 60 (sixty) days to exercise its buyback obligations, if provided in the Basic Terms and Conditions, and the right in any of the events specified in sub-clauses of Clause 11.2 of the General Terms and Conditions to use buyback rights on the Claim assigned to it by the Agreement by paying a buyback price to the Assignee. The Loan Originator hereby authorizes Mintos, in case if the Loan Originator’s obligation to exercise its buyback obligations have occurred, to write off from the Loan Originator’s Account and transfer the electronic money equivalent to the buyback price to the Virtual Account of the Assignee immediately, without obtaining prior separate order from the Loan Originator. In case the Loan Originator wishes to exercise its buyback rights, by a separate order the Loan Originator shall authorize Mintos to write off from the Loan Originator’s Account and transfer the electronic money equivalent to the buyback price to Virtual Account of the Assignee. The Claim shall be considered as returned to the Loan Originator from the moment of the payment of the electronic money equivalent to the buyback price in the Virtual Account of the Assignee. The Assignee shall not make any complaints against the Loan Originator in respect of the use of buyback rights or exercise of buyback obligations due to lost profit and any other damages in this respect.
For avoidance of doubt the rights and obligations of Mintos and loan originator are clearly presented in section Division of Rights and Obligations between the Loan Originator and Mintos of the assignment agreement.
We highly value investor feedback and are always open to help if there are any question. Therefore, we would welcome investors to contact us before making bold and unsubstantiated claims in public.
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,317 
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Post by JamesFrance on Oct 18, 2016 17:29:17 GMT
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Post by littleinvestor on Oct 18, 2016 20:51:43 GMT
Of course they have a foot in other fintech companies, it is a way to keep control. What a surprise. I'd suggest the author to remove the blog as martins answered , the author clearly misunderstood and used an outdated template to base its (wrong)findings on. |
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Post by guggaburggi on Oct 18, 2016 21:43:56 GMT
To be honest. If Mintos is indeed under ownership of the same people/group who work as originators, thus mintos=banknote etc., like the blog suggest, then it would make me a lot more uncertain.
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fric
Member of DD Central
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Post by fric on Oct 19, 2016 6:16:08 GMT
Well, regarding the division of risk hasn't it always been like this in p2p platforms - that investors bare the risks? Just look at bondora - investors take all the risks and loses because the loans aren't prefinanced and there is no skin in the game from them. Same goes here - as long as Mogo's & others business model stays sound and there is no 2008 all over again, we should be ok I guess. Its in their best interest to make keep it in good condition to make more money.
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Post by martins on Oct 19, 2016 6:51:53 GMT
Mintos shareholders are founders, employees through stock options, and Riga-based VC Skillion Ventures (https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/23/mintos/). Each of the loan originators have their own different shareholder structure. Except for Hipocredit, Mintos does not share controlling shareholders with any of the loan originators.
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Post by shaudinja on Oct 22, 2016 12:06:41 GMT
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Post by shaudinja on Oct 22, 2016 12:09:23 GMT
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Post by shaudinja on Oct 22, 2016 12:47:17 GMT
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fric
Member of DD Central
Posts: 199
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Post by fric on Oct 22, 2016 13:39:25 GMT
Sadly its a common practice - quite a few of non-bank small payday creditors are owned or financed by the same people, you just have many brands and businesses. I guess its easier to fool people that there is serious competition and therefore he must be getting a good deal.
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Post by rahafoorum on Oct 22, 2016 17:52:15 GMT
While Mintos surely doesn't want to comment on those relationships much and there was no mention of any relationships when launching Lendo to market, and this is definitely a worrying sign, I'm anxiously waiting for the third article.
The article showing the relationship graphs with companies of the author who wrote a review named "independent" and who is actually hiding the identity behind fake name which doesn't exist, fake facebook and gmail accounts and fake blog and is hellbent on trying to not only share the article everywhere, but also damage Mintos' reputation by posting comments even on Trustpilot (which will not lead readers to the blog post).
Posts about Mintos haven't (un)fortunately given details to prove any actual wrongdoing (have they?) or that there's any specific scam going on here, despite of the highly dramatical claims of the author. But they do kind of undermine the claims about great diversification between different originators, if they're just different legal entities of same owners. And should have started the conversation about conflicts of interests, which unfortunately also received no comments from Mintos representative on the Facebook thread.
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Post by extremis on Oct 22, 2016 22:45:08 GMT
Well, since i have invested in Mintos i am also very concerned with those bold claims and, naturally, i have tried to get any possible information to either prove them right or wrong. While i have not reached to a definite conclusion yet, there are some things that don't make any sense:
1) There are many obvious mistakes (especially in the first article): Aigars is not CEO of Mintos, Martins Sulte is. Aigars' Linkedin profile is half a year old (screenshot probably taken in last May) and assignment agreement should be even older. Therefore, my question is why someone that (claims to) have done a thorough research yet makes such silly mistakes as providing outdated information?
2) Mintos is NOT bankrupt; the claim that Mintos is liable for buyback guarantees is simply wrong as the risk always stays with Loan Originators. Even if Mintos and all the Loan Originators are ultimately owned by the same people, i don't understand how the risk of one Loan Originator could be transferred to Mintos. After all, aren't they all Limited companies?
3) And now we come to the claim that Mintos and (most) Loan Originators are controlled by the same person(s), i.e. the illusion of diversification was created to give a false sense of security and lure more investors in. This is by no means easy to find out for sure, i suggest everyone concerned should make his own research and post the relevant information at this thread.
Mintos seems rather reluctant to disclose names and share percentages for their own group companies (not to mention Loan Originators, except of course Hipocredit that is no secret it's a Mintos group company); at their first reply there was not even a single comment on the actual shareholders. Now, we know that Skillion VC has put 2M in Mintos and given the early stage (1M share capital?), Skillion VC most likely controls Mintos. I have searched for Skillion shareholders, but couldn't find any info (Aigars perhaps?). Therefore, the claim that Skillion is Aigars' business through which he controls Mintos could very well be true. But again, this happened only last February, it doesn't seem to have been planned all the way from the beginning.
I have also searched for Mogo's shareholders, since Mogo is the largest Loan Originator (33.1%) and found the following:
Year Major Shareholders
2012 AS Skillion Ventures (100%)
30.6.2014 AS Skillion Ventures (61.34%), SIA MM investiciju risinajumi (30.66%)
1.7.2014-(today?) Mogo Finance S.A. (100%)
Mogo Finance S.A. has 2 shareholders with 30.33% each, and seven others with shares from 10.11% to 0.5%, all citizens of the Republic of Latvia. So, Aigars alone cannot control Mogo Finance S.A. which owns Mogo (assuming he is one of the major shareholders).
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Post by rahafoorum on Oct 23, 2016 7:12:56 GMT
2) Mintos is NOT bankrupt; the claim that Mintos is liable for buyback guarantees is simply wrong as the risk always stays with Loan Originators. Even if Mintos and all the Loan Originators are ultimately owned by the same people, i don't understand how the risk of one Loan Originator could be transferred to Mintos. After all, aren't they all Limited companies? Great analysis of the post. I came to similar conclusions about most of it being BS. The relations is a bit harder thing to do, but the claims are unfortunately automatically discounted, coming from somewhere with tons of simple factual and logic mistakes (possibly even on purpose?). So great work on attempting to shed some light into this. I'd like to elaborate on the point I've marked in bold though (not very related to topic at hand, but still). The risk actually stays with investor in the end, not Mintos nor Loan Originator and should be treated as such when making the investments, even into buyback guarantee loans.
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yacop
Posts: 68
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Post by yacop on Oct 23, 2016 9:02:34 GMT
I came to the conclusion that Mintos being bankrupt and can not fulfill buyback is wrong as it is written in the loan agreement that it is carried out by the loan originator.
What worries me much is the possible links in the shareholder structure of loan originators.
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