How to Invest in Maclear: Sign-Up, KYC and First Investment (2026)

How to invest in Maclear: the short version

Investing in Maclear takes nine steps: register through a referral link, verify your identity with Sumsub and complete proof of address, activate SEPA Instant and deposit, find your way around the dashboard, pick a project on the primary market, read the project page, place a first order of €50 or more within 7 days, sign Form A once Maclear emails it and set up AutoInvest, then monitor your positions in My investments. Maclear puts the KYC review at typically up to 10 minutes. Our own run from registration to the first order, KYC and the deposit included, took around 20 minutes.

Maclear is a Swiss crowdlending platform (Maclear AG, Wallisellen near Zurich) for secured business loans to small and medium-sized companies in Europe. Interest is 14 to 16% a year depending on the project (the homepage headline says up to 15.6%), paid monthly, minimum €50 per project. The platform reports over 52,000 investors and more than €145 million funded. The full test is our Maclear review, the regulation and the 2024 annual report are in Is Maclear safe?. No deposit guarantee scheme applies, and a total loss of invested capital is possible.

The order of the steps matters: the 3% cashback is linked to your account at registration, and the 7-day clock for the €15 welcome bonus also starts at registration, not after KYC.

See the platform in action

If you prefer to watch first, our review video shows the platform from the inside: bonuses, returns, the four security layers, the first default and the fees.

More P2P walkthroughs are on our channel.

What you need before you start

• •Age 18 to 85 and residence in one of the 44 countries Maclear lists (Europe, EEA and the UK). US residents and politically exposed persons cannot register.
• •A valid passport, national ID card or residence permit, plus a smartphone for the document photo and the selfie.
• •A EUR bank account in your own name that can send SEPA transfers. Maclear only accepts deposits from an account registered in the same name as your investor account and says transfers from a different name are rejected and returned to the sender. Withdrawals go to a verified IBAN in your name only.
• •An email address you read. Support runs through an in-platform chatbot and support@maclear.ch; there is no live chat with an agent, and weekend replies take 24 to 48 hours.

The app is available in English; the language switch sits in the top-right menu. If you want the platform's rules and limits before you open an account, we listed them in 10 things to know about Maclear.

Step 1: Register through a referral link

Open the registration page via a referral link, for example ours, enter your email and a password, accept the terms, confirm the email. That is the whole registration.

The link is Maclear's own rule, not our marketing: the 3% cashback is the new-user side of Maclear's 3+3 referral programme. It applies to every primary-market investment of €50 or more in your first 90 days from registration, is paid as cash to your balance once a project reaches Funded, and has no cap. The referral connection is created at registration and cannot be added afterwards; any referral link works, without one you get nothing from this programme. Worked examples are in our Maclear bonus guide.

Use a long password you use nowhere else and switch on two-factor authentication. Turning 2FA off later requires a selfie with your ID.

Step 2: KYC with Sumsub and proof of address

After the email confirmation you land in the identity check. Maclear uses Sumsub and puts the review at typically up to 10 minutes: pick your document type, photograph your passport, ID card or residence permit, then take a selfie. If the submission is rejected you are notified immediately with instructions to resubmit, and Maclear says some rejection types go to manual review by its support team.

Once KYC is approved, a second and separate step follows: proof of address. This is the one that actually opens the account, because Maclear states that POA verification is what unlocks deposits, withdrawals and your first investment. Skip it and the deposit screen will not do anything for you.

Maclear is a member of PolyReg, a Swiss self-regulatory organisation recognised by FINMA, which is why identity checks are mandatory here. Membership is not a banking licence. Maclear also reports a compliance audit by Grant Thornton AG in November 2024 that covered its AML processes, KYC procedures and compliance with PolyReg's rulebook.

One thing that does not happen in this sitting: Form A. Maclear emails that Swiss compliance form after your first investment, so it lands in step 8 and not in onboarding, no matter what older guides tell you.

Step 3: Activate SEPA Instant and deposit

Go to Deposit/Withdraw, which needs the KYC and the proof of address from step 2 behind it. Maclear runs all deposits through Narvi Bank (the earlier Wise account is closed), and the deposit screen states three things: SEPA only, EUR only, minimum €50. That €50 floor is not a screen quirk, Maclear's deposit help page documents it as well. The same bank transfer notice puts a standard SEPA transfer at 1 to 2 working days, with no deposit fee.

The faster route is the Instant deposit tab. Activate it once with a data consent and Maclear assigns you a personal virtual IBAN linked to your profile. Approval usually takes up to 5 minutes; from then on, transfers from your own-name account arrive within minutes. Always include the personal deposit reference Maclear shows you (it carries your account number, MC plus digits). Without it the transfer cannot be matched automatically and goes into manual processing, which Maclear says may take up to 4 business days. SEPA Instant is a deposit feature; withdrawals still take 1 to 2 business days of processing.

Step 4: Find your way around the dashboard

The Overview page shows total funds, average rate, active investments and expected interest for the month. The screenshot is our own test account: €1,045 invested at an average 14.54%, and Maclear puts expected interest for the month at €12.59. Read the chart legend before you read the bars as income: it separates monthly interest from forecast, and the current month is the bar marked as a forecast.

Two lines matter for beginners. Maclear balance is cash you can invest or withdraw. Reserved is money committed to projects that are still filling, and reserved money earns no interest.

Step 5: Pick a project on the primary market

The primary market sorts projects by status: Open, Compliance Process, Prefunded, Funded, Repaid. You invest in Open projects. Each card shows the country flag, the rating letter, funding progress, interest rate and loan period.

The three cards in the screenshot show what that looks like: ULTIMA FINANCE (Bulgaria, rating A) at 15.2% for 9 months, M&M STAR GROUP (Czech Republic, BBB) at 14.9% for 13 months and LEADX DIGITAL (Czech Republic, BBB) at 14.8% for 12 months. The A-rated project pays more than both BBB projects, so the rating letter on its own does not tell you what a loan yields. And Maclear itself writes that projects can be fully funded within hours, which is where AutoInvest (step 8) comes in.

Step 6: Read the project page: rating, LTV, term, repayment

Click into the project before you type an amount. Four figures decide whether the rate is worth the risk.

Rating. Ten grades from AAA to D, weighted across financial risk, qualitative risk and coverage and liquidity, reviewed quarterly. Projects below Maclear's minimum threshold are not listed. One conflict of interest to keep in mind: Maclear rates the borrower, lists the loan and earns a 3 to 6% commission from the borrower for the listing.

LTV (loan-to-value), the loan amount divided by the collateral value. Maclear's own bands: 40 to 80% low risk, 80 to 120% moderate (collateral roughly covers the loan), 120 to 160% elevated, 160 to 200% high risk, where Maclear says enforcement may not fully cover the principal if asset values decline. "Every loan is secured" says nothing about how far the security reaches. The screenshot is the lesson: an A-rated project with an LTV of 98%. Read both signals.

Term in months and repayment type: annuity (capital and interest monthly) or bullet (interest monthly, capital at the end). Collateral types you will see: real estate, business equipment, machinery, vehicles or inventory, plus personal guarantees of the owners.

Step 7: Place your first investment within 7 days

Type your amount (minimum €50), confirm, done. For the €15 welcome bonus the first investment must be on the primary market, at least €50, within 7 days of registration. The bonus is not cash: it is credited as a separate bonus position in the same project, earns the same rate and pays out on the project's schedule. AutoInvest counts like a manual order.

With more than €50 to place, think in blocks of €500. Maclear pays €30 for every full €500 you invest in a project and calculates it on the total amount in that project, so a later top-up still counts towards the next block. Partial blocks do not count at all: €999 in one project earns the same single €30 as €500 does. The cap is €300 per project for every league below Platinum, the top tier of Maclear's investor leaderboard. A first €500 in one project brings €60 in one-off bonuses: €30 block, €15 cashback, €15 welcome. One-time amounts for new users, not annual return.

The timing is what catches new investors out. Interest starts only when the project reaches Funded, up to 10 business days after your confirmation; until then the money is Reserved and earns nothing, and the cashback is credited at Funded too. Should a project miss its funding target and end up Not Funded, the reserved amount goes straight back to your Maclear balance. And if a borrower repays early, you receive your capital plus interest for the actual term, with a minimum of three months of interest even if the loan ran for two. Maclear puts the first interest payment at 30 to 40 days after investing, depending on how quickly the project reaches its target, then monthly.

Step 8: Sign Form A, then set up AutoInvest

Your first investment triggers the document most new investors have never heard of. Maclear emails Form A, a one-time Swiss compliance form in which you confirm that you are the beneficial owner of the invested money, and you e-sign it through Skribble. Until that signature is in, you stay at exactly one investment, AutoInvest remains unavailable and you cannot sell on the secondary market. Signing clears all three restrictions in one go.

AutoInvest is where the priority queue lives: when a project opens, AutoInvest strategies are served before manual investors. Since projects can fill within hours, a strategy is the realistic way to get allocations without watching the app.

You can run up to 10 strategies with criteria for interest range, loan term, risk level, country and project type. A strategy only applies to projects that go live after activation, and it needs the signed Form A plus the proof of address from step 2.

Two rules before you switch it on. An executed AutoInvest order cannot be cancelled or reversed; to stop future allocations, deactivate or delete the strategy. And AutoInvest qualifies for all bonuses: the AUTO label is a tracking flag only. We will not tell you which filters to set. Step 6 shows why the rating letter alone is not a risk filter, since an A-rated project can carry an LTV of 98%.

Step 9: Monitor your portfolio in My investments

My investments lists every position with interest received so far, loan term, remaining months, project ID and a Sell button. AUTO means a strategy placed it. BONUS is a bonus position: in our account, the €500 manual order in INTECHNA at 14.2% produced a €45 bonus line, which matches €30 block plus €15 welcome, and that line is marked Resale restricted. Bonus positions cannot be sold on the secondary market; they run to repayment.

Check this page once a month. If a borrower pays late, Maclear's escalation runs on fixed steps from day 3 (provision fund covers interest) to day 90 (claims transferred to Maclear as main creditor); you cannot act against a borrower yourself. The full ladder and the single default so far (Vibroedil, Italy, July 2025, 100% of principal repaid) are in Is Maclear safe?.

How withdrawals work

Under Deposit/Withdraw you request a payout of your available balance: minimum €50, only to a verified IBAN in your own name, no fee. Maclear processes in 1 to 2 business days, then the bank transfer usually adds a business day in the eurozone. Invested funds are not withdrawable until repaid.

If you need money that is tied up in a loan, the secondary market is the only exit: minimum transaction €30, the seller pays 2.5%, buyers pay nothing, and Maclear does not guarantee a sale. Bonus positions cannot be listed.

One clause from the platform-closure FAQ belongs here: if Maclear winds down and cannot return your uninvested balance, you have 30 calendar days after its request to supply updated bank details, otherwise Maclear may dispose of the funds and your claim lapses. Keep your IBAN and email current.

Download your tax statement

Statements has three tabs: Transactions, Account summary and Tax. Pick a date range, click Show, and use the download icon to export.

No Swiss withholding tax is deducted from Maclear interest. You declare the income yourself in your country of residence under its rules for interest income. The statement breaks the year into named lines, among them interest, cashback, referrer reward and bonus investments, so you can see which part is interest and which part is bonus. How each is taxed differs by country; check your national tax authority or a local adviser.

Common first-week mistakes

1. •Registering without a referral link and asking for cashback afterwards. It cannot be attached retroactively.
2. •Ignoring the Form A email that arrives after the first investment. The second investment is blocked and AutoInvest stays unavailable until you sign.
3. •Missing the 7-day welcome window because KYC, the proof of address or the deposit waited until next weekend. The clock started at registration.
4. •Stopping at €490 in a project and expecting the €30 block bonus. Maclear rounds your total in that project down to full €500 blocks, so €490 pays nothing and €999 pays exactly one block.
5. •Leaving cash idle. Reserved funds and free balance earn nothing.

The expensive versions, including the diversification and rate-chasing mistakes, are in Maclear mistakes to avoid.

Maclear sign-up: key facts

Conclusion: how to invest in Maclear

The sign-up is quick if you do it in the right order: referral link, KYC and proof of address in one sitting, SEPA Instant activated, first order of €50 or more on the primary market within 7 days. Form A only follows by email after that first investment, and signing it is what opens AutoInvest and everything beyond a single position. Around 20 minutes in our case up to the first order, most of it waiting for Sumsub.

What the process cannot do is remove the risk. Maclear AG sits in Switzerland, a third country outside the EU, so it has no ECSP licence and no EU supervisor, and no deposit guarantee scheme applies. Its 2024 annual report, published in June 2026 and more than a year late, shows negative equity of CHF 87,026, and Maclear paid investors more in interest and bonuses (CHF 827,849) than borrowers paid in interest (CHF 464,322). CFO Aleksandr Lang calls this growth costs, points to an EBITDA close to zero and a CHF 55,000 shareholder injection, and expects positive equity by the end of 2025, not yet audited. Three years of history, 1,967 funded projects by July 2026 and one default resolved at 100% are a decent record, but a short one. A total loss of invested capital is possible.

A rule of thumb often quoted in the P2P community is to keep P2P at no more than 5 to 10% of a portfolio and a single young platform at 1 to 2%, with the emergency fund in an instant-access savings account at a regulated bank.