Lendermarket Mistakes: 5 Beginner Traps and How to Avoid Them

Lendermarket Mistakes: Where Beginners Slip First

The first of five common Lendermarket mistakes is easy to picture: an investor opens an account, makes a deposit and switches on Auto Invest in one go, without a second look at which service the money goes to. On screen, nothing about that setup looks wrong. Yet if the unregulated service is part of the selection, the portfolio can buy claims there, where loans from all seven originators can run up to 240 days late before a buyback. If that investor needs the money a few months later, Lendermarket does not offer a secondary market to sell into.

None of this is hidden, and the platform is transparent about each part. Every loan carries its service label, and the service type step sits right in the setup flow. The mistake lies in skipping what is already on screen. We rank it first because two of the other mistakes, the group exposure and the waiting times, start right here.

This guide covers five beginner mistakes on today's platform, each with its fix. Lendermarket 2.0 launched in April 2024, and the old 1.0 platform closed on 31 December 2025. Older guides may still describe how things used to work. We made some of these mistakes ourselves when we started with a smaller amount, and today we hold a four-figure sum on Lendermarket.

See the Five Mistakes Explained

The video walks through the same five mistakes in the same order, each with its fix.

Mistake 1: Not Knowing Which Service You Are Buying

Every loan on Lendermarket belongs to one of two services, and the difference runs deeper than a label.

The Crowdfunding Service falls under Regulation (EU) 2020/1503, the EU crowdfunding rules under which the Central Bank of Ireland authorised Lendermarket. Here you lend to the loan originator. The Claims Assignment Service sits outside that regulation, and there you acquire claims through an assignment agreement. In both cases, the originator owes you the money, not Lendermarket.

What stands out is how cleanly the originators split. The unregulated side holds all six Creditstar lines plus Credifiel. These seven also carry the 240-day maximum wait before a buyback. The regulated side holds the other seven, Gatelink among them. Your service type therefore shapes group exposure and waiting times at once.

The trap sits in the setup. The service choice comes up twice. During onboarding, Lendermarket asks whether you want to invest in regulated or unregulated services, and you can review that selection in your account settings at any time. The start panel shown above then asks again in step four, service type. A beginner who clicks through both quickly can end up in a service they never consciously picked. We made this one ourselves when we started.

The one caveat for anyone now planning to stay regulated only: regulated does not mean protected against loss. Neither service is covered by a deposit guarantee scheme or an investor compensation scheme. Repayment still depends on the originator.

The fix: Decide on the service before you activate a portfolio, both in your account settings and in the Auto Invest service type step. Either service can make sense, as long as the choice is deliberate. Check the service label on any loan you pick by hand, too. A later edit to a portfolio only applies to new investments, while loans you already hold continue as they are.

Mistake 2: Overlooking How Much Leads Back to Creditstar

Fourteen originators sound like plenty of spread. Sort them by who stands behind them, and the list gets shorter.

Six are Creditstar lines: Creditstar Spain, Finland, Denmark, Czech and Sweden, plus Monefit. All six have Creditstar Group AS as their legal entity and share its group buyback guarantee. The group is also a sister company of Lendermarket. The 2025 annual reports of both firms name the same Estonian parent, SA Financial Investments OÜ. The Monefit here is a Creditstar lending line, not the Monefit SmartSaver product.

A seventh line is easy to miss. Gatelink International OÜ is its own legal entity, with an Estonian licence and no group guarantee. On paper, Lendermarket describes Gatelink as 'legally and operationally separate from Creditstar Group entities'. Yet Gatelink lends to Creditstar companies, and in the regulated listings above, its loans carry the identifier 'Creditstar Finland'.

That places seven of fourteen lines in one economic camp, one of them on the regulated side. Why does that matter? Lendermarket's own risk wording answers it: 'A Buyback Guarantee is a contractual obligation of the Loan Originator and is dependent on their financial capacity.' Spreading money across the six Creditstar lines spreads it across countries, not across balance sheets. Our Lendermarket safety check follows the ownership trail through both annual reports.

In practice, the Auto Invest version of this mistake is simple: allow every originator, and the loans on offer set your group exposure for you. That said, holding Creditstar lines is not a mistake in itself. Not knowing how much of your money sits with one group is.

The fix: Decide how much Creditstar exposure you are comfortable with, and count Gatelink on that side. For real spread, add lenders from outside the group. Seven sit there today: RapiCredit, RapiCredit Iberica, Dineo, Flowpay, OK Credit, Best Credit and Credifiel. The line-up moves, too: OK Credit and Best Credit only joined in August 2026. Check the official list of loan originators before you set your filters.

Mistake 3: Reading the 0% Default Rate as Fast Money Back

Lendermarket reports a 0% default rate, and the figure is accurate. It simply measures less than it seems to. A late loan that the originator eventually buys back never counts as a default, however late it ran, so the 0% says nothing about how long you wait.

The waiting is real. At the time of writing, Lendermarket's own statistics showed 89.73% of outstanding principal as current, while the remaining 10% or so was 1 to 60 days late or in pending payments. Like every figure here, that split is a snapshot, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

How long a late loan can run depends on who issued it. The buyback activates 60 days after the final scheduled or extended maturity date, and due dates can change within each originator's extension policy, which Lendermarket shows under every loan. The official buyback and extensions page adds both parts up, and the result is easy to follow:

• •Up to 240 days late: the six Creditstar lines and Credifiel, with 180 days of extensions plus 60
• •Up to 120 days: Dineo, with 60 plus 60
• •Up to 60 days: RapiCredit, RapiCredit Iberica, Gatelink and Flowpay, which have no extensions
• •Not listed: OK Credit and Best Credit do not appear in the table

Lendermarket's marketing pages shorten all of this to 60 days: if a borrower is more than 60 days late, the originator repays principal and accrued interest. For four originators, 60 days is the whole wait. For eight others, it is only the final stretch.

The trade-off is that short chains are not automatically the low-exposure choice. Gatelink stops at 60 days, yet its loans lead back to Creditstar. Credifiel, the one unregulated originator outside the group, carries the full 240. Speed and spread can pull in opposite directions.

The fix: The deciding factor is the date you might need the money. A late loan on a 240-day chain can keep capital waiting about eight months past its due date, so those lines suit money you can spare for that long. Where timing matters more, the short chains fit better, as long as you check them against mistake two.

Mistake 4: Signing Up Without the Cashback

This mistake costs nothing to avoid. Once your account exists, though, it cannot be repaired.

New investors who register through our link get 1.5% cashback on their net invested funds during the first 90 days after the account is validated. That happens once the identity check is complete. The cashback lands in the Lendermarket account within 5 business days after those 90 days end. There is no promo code to type in, because the link stores the referral in the background.

The mechanics are straightforward. The cashback is a single credit to your account. It is not interest, and it leaves the rate of every loan unchanged. On €2,000 of net invested funds, it comes to €30.

Timing is where beginners slip. You benefit from the offer only as a new investor signing up through the link, so it cannot be attached to an account you already hold. Beyond that, Lendermarket runs its own time-limited campaigns now and then, each with its own terms. Our Lendermarket cashback guide covers activation, payout and Lendermarket's separate €75 refer-a-friend programme.

The fix: If you plan to open an account anyway, register through our link before anything else. The 90-day window then opens once your identity check is done, and your net invested funds during that window count towards the cashback.

Mistake 5: Treating Auto Invest FLEX Like a Secondary Market

What happens if you want money back before your loans end? The honest answer starts with a gap: Lendermarket does not offer a secondary market. Auto Invest FLEX covers part of that gap, and its name invites the wrong picture.

A FLEX exit is a request, not a sale. You ask to exit 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your current value, and the exit only goes through if replacement funding is found. The FLEX terms give Lendermarket up to 10 calendar days to process a request. If no funding turns up, the request lapses at no cost and your investment keeps running. Lendermarket's risk wording is unambiguous: the feature 'is conditional only and does not constitute a guaranteed right to liquidity'.

A completed exit costs 3.5% of the exited amount, as the fee page lists it, so exiting €500 costs €17.50. On top of that, two smaller rules apply. After an approved exit, reinvestment into that portfolio pauses for 10 business days, a minor drawback if you meant to put the money straight back into it. And because loans are bought back in whole units, the executed exit can be larger than requested: in Lendermarket's example, a 25% request of €250 can liquidate €300.

FLEX is marketed with target returns of up to 10.5%, which describes a target rather than a promise.

One thing to flag in the screenshot above: all three FLEX portfolios lead back to Creditstar. Monefit Estonia and Creditstar Spain are Creditstar lines, and Gatelink lends to Creditstar companies. The line-up can change, so checking the originator behind a portfolio before you activate it is a sensible habit.

The fix: Treat money in FLEX as money you can wait for. Plan as if an exit takes the full 10 calendar days or does not happen at all, and count the 3.5% before you request one. Our ten-point Lendermarket checklist covers FLEX alongside other practical rules such as minimums and withdrawal fees.

Each Mistake Next to Its Fix

A Five-Point Check Before Your First Euro

Five questions cover everything above. Run through them before your first deposit rather than after your first loan:

1. •Service type: Have you checked your service selection in the account settings and in the Auto Invest service type step?
2. •Originator spread: Count the lines that lead back to Creditstar, Gatelink included, and decide whether that share suits you.
3. •Time horizon: Could you leave the money alone for the full extension chain of the originators in your filters, which can mean up to 240 days?
4. •Sign-up route: Register through our link if you want the 1.5% cashback, because an existing account cannot add it later.
5. •FLEX expectations: Would you still be comfortable if an exit took up to 10 calendar days, cost 3.5% or lapsed?

As for our own money, we hold a four-figure amount on Lendermarket, started with a smaller sum and plan to expand step by step. So far, our experience has been positive. Lendermarket itself recommends keeping crowdfunding below 10% of your net worth. We are not financial advisers, and nothing here is investment advice.

Lendermarket comes across as a platform that rewards reading its own tables and terms. Four of the five mistakes can be avoided with information Lendermarket publishes itself, and the fifth only needs the right link at sign-up. Our full Lendermarket review has the complete verdict, from fees to who the platform suits. If you also hold Monefit SmartSaver or are weighing it up, note that it belongs to the Creditstar Group as well. Our Lendermarket vs Monefit SmartSaver comparison explains what that shared group means for your spread.