Income Marketplace review 2025: Everything about the new P2P provider
Income Marketplace is a relatively new P2P provider with which I have already had my first experience. For this article, I analysed the platform in detail and answered the most important questions in an interview with CEO Kimmo Rytkönen.
High yields, consumer lending with short terms, location Estonia. Income P2P Marketplace appears at first glance to be another typical marketplace for personal loans. But with a new approach to securing investments, it is probably the most modern and unusual P2P provider! Let’s take a look at Income Marketplace and the experiences of investors.
In brief:
- Income Marketplace is a new P2P market (lending since 2021) from Estonia
- Typical functions (auto-invest, buy-back guarantee) and the usual high returns of up to 12% make an appealing impression
- The biggest difference to the competition is the sophisticated security mechanisms
- The ‘cash flow buffer’ and ‘junior share’ have found ways to protect investors against lender insolvency and payment defaults
Review: What is Income Marketplace?
Income Marketplace is a platform that enables you to invest in personal loans. If you lend your own capital to borrowers in this way, you can achieve high returns – I myself have had very good experiences with this form of investment in recent years! I have also recently become active with Income and have already achieved success. The company has been allowing investment in P2P lending since 2021, making it one of the younger players in the highly competitive market.
Here we offer lending from the ‘consumer lending’ category, i.e. lending for private individuals. These are often used to bridge a short period of time until the next salary payment for planned purchases. Accordingly, the term is often only one to a maximum of six months.
Although Income has only been active for a short time, it has already attracted a great deal of media attention. In addition, the company currently has the highest growth rates in the entire P2P market. In January 2023, the company had already granted one million euros worth of lending – a very good result so soon after its launch!
The most important data at a glance:
| Founded: | 2020 as an income-generating company |
| Company headquarters: | Tallinn, Estonia, operating as OÜ |
| Number of investors: | +9,500 (as at 05/2025) |
| Financing volume of lending: | +632,400 € (as at 04/2025) |
| Returns: | 13.78 % according to official data from the platform |
| Minimum investment amount: | 10 EUR |
| Buyback guarantee: | Yes |
| Auto Invest: | Yes |
| Secondary market: | No, but in planning |
| Issue of a tax certificate: | No, but there is a normal account statement |
| Loyalty programme for investors: | No |
| Starting bonus: | 1% on your first investment (get it with this link) |
| Evaluation: | Take a look at our review of the P2P platforms |
Review: How investing in Income Marketplace works
Like so many other P2P providers, Income Marketplace originates from Estonia, the unofficial centre for this form of investment. With this form of investment, private investors can use their capital to finance lending to individuals or companies.
The processing is handled by lenders. These companies are the point of contact for people who want to borrow money and later take care of repayments or the collection procedure in the event of default. However, they do not provide the money for these lending programmes themselves, but offer interested investors the opportunity to invest their capital.
In return, investors usually receive a very high interest rate – 12 % and more are not uncommon! However, this sum can be reduced in some cases due to late payment or even defaults. Marketplaces like Income are web platforms where lenders and investors come together. It is therefore a kind of intermediary service. At the same time, Income Marketplace offers us additional security, as it controls the lenders and ensures that everything is above board.
There are currently nine lenders to whom you can entrust your money on the Income platform. They operate in Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Brazil, Indonesia, Columbia and Bulgaria. More lenders will be added over time.
If you would also like to benefit from the 12% interest, then register now via the link and take advantage of my Income bonus.
The risk with Income Marketplace: buyback guarantee as the current standard
Investments in personal loans are among the riskiest forms of investment, as there is always a risk of non-payment or default. To overcome this problem, Income (like most of its competitors) offers a buyback guarantee: if a borrower is unable to repay their instalments on time or even defaults completely, the outstanding amount will be refunded to you.
This makes an investment much safer for you, as you can sleep soundly even if a loan is in arrears. However, two problems overshadow P2P lending despite the buyback guarantee: the possible insolvency or unwillingness of a lender.
If the company granting the lending gets into financial difficulties, your capital may be at risk: in many cases, repayment is then no longer possible – buyback guarantee or not. Many investors have already had to make this painful experience. There are also known cases in which a lender simply refuses to honour its obligations for other reasons.
Unlike its competitors, however, Income does not simply rely on trust in the lenders – it specifically creates the opportunity to ensure that repayment is enforced if the worst comes to the worst! This is because the P2P platform grants itself the right to collect the outstanding amount itself in an emergency and pay it out to the investors.
At the same time, further measures have been taken to ensure that lenders’ insolvencies can also be compensated. Income Marketplace thus appears to have found a way to avoid the greatest risks in the P2P sector.
How the Junior Share works at Income Marketplace
With the ‘Junior Share’, Income has introduced a sensible adaptation of the well-known ‘skin in the game’ concept. Lenders are always invested in a loan with their own capital. However, this amount is usually only 5 to a maximum of 10 per cent of the total value. The rest of the money comes from the investors.
This amount is referred to as ‘skin in the game’ and is intended to motivate the lender to ensure the quality of the loans granted, timely repayment, etc. The assumption is that there is a corresponding motivation through the lender’s own involvement.
In reality, however, this sum is hardly sufficient to always encourage lenders to adopt good business practices. As there is a high chance of recovering the few per cent skin in the game in the event of a default, companies have little concern about a loan default. For investors, on the other hand, the risk is much greater as they provide the majority of the capital.
The junior share adapts this concept, in which the two parties are no longer equal investors: If a lending defaults, the investors are paid out preferentially. In return, the lenders’ share is used up first. Only if further money can be recovered later do the lending companies also get their money back. This prioritisation by Junior Share ensures that lenders are much more motivated to ensure the quality of the loans granted. After all, in the event of an emergency, they are the first to suffer losses due to a payment default.
Extra security thanks to the cash flow buffer
With the Junior Share, Income Marketplace has found a good way to motivate lenders to grant good loans and to better secure repayment. However, this has not yet solved one major problem: the risk of lender bankruptcy.
In the past, it has already happened on other platforms that an entire credit company has slipped into insolvency. In this case, the investors’ capital was usually completely or at least partially lost. With the Cashflow Buffer, Income has created an interesting security concept designed to remedy this situation. The idea behind it is quite simple: the loans granted are not repaid to the lender, but to Income Marketplace itself.
The lender only receives its share once the liabilities to the investors have been covered. In the event of bankruptcy, the money is therefore not lost, as it is in the hands of Income Marketplace. If the lender no longer fulfils its payment obligations or the buyback guarantee, Income Marketplace has the contractually guaranteed right to take over the loan company’s portfolio.
With the borrower data that Income always has at its disposal, loans can be recovered quickly. The company states that it is already in contact with debt collection companies in the relevant countries so that it can act quickly if the worst comes to the worst.
Is Income Marketplace safe?
As investors, we are concerned about how secure an investment with P2P providers such as Income is. Such high interest rates are usually only possible if there is a correspondingly high level of risk.
Personal loans are indeed generally categorised as high-risk investments. The reasons for this are primarily the dangers of late payment or lender default. However, Income Marketplace has already tackled both problems with its security measures.
So is the income market a safe investment? That would be going too far. Despite extensive security mechanisms, P2P lending remains risky. Compared to other providers, however, Income seems to have taken better precautions.
If the platform’s concept proves itself in the coming months, Income could undoubtedly be described as the safest provider on the P2P market. This could open up an enormous market for investors with a medium risk appetite. However, until Income has gained the necessary experience, the actual security remains uncertain.
The Income Marketplace Auto Invest function makes the P2P platform exciting
At Income Marketplace, you can select lending for your investment manually or use the auto-invest function. Your capital is automatically used for available loans according to your specifications.
You can specify the maximum amount, desired return, term and more here. Automatic reinvestment of your earnings is also possible. You can even evenly distribute your investments among the available lenders to avoid clumping risks.
Further advantages of Income Marketplace at a glance:
The security features of Income Marketplace are certainly the most interesting unique selling point; however, the provider should not be reduced to this alone! The platform has numerous other advantages to offer.
1. Clarity and simple structure
Income Marketplace has a clear, easy-to-use website. It offers all the important functions at a glance. Other providers could take a leaf out of the book when it comes to the simple design!
2. Own app
An app for Android and iOS is also available to investors. All important functions can be found here in the usual clear interface. Ideal for taking a look at the growing portfolio on the go.
3. High transparency
Income offers a statistics section that gives you insights into important key figures of the platforms and your own investment. This type of transparency is crucial for P2P providers – investors have already had plenty of bad experiences with marketplaces that do not disclose their data.
4. Automatic tax report
If you are paid out profits for your investment, you must declare this accordingly on your tax return. Income Marketplace provides you with a tax report that can be generated with just a few clicks. This saves you a lot of work!
Conclusion: My review of Income Marketplace
Income Marketplace is a typical P2P platform that stands out from the crowd with its unique security features. With high interest rates of up to 12 %, short terms and strong growth, it is an exciting option for many investors.
However, the additional protection provided by the cash flow buffer and junior share will undoubtedly attract the greatest interest. Investors who have already been affected by the bankruptcy of a lender or extensive payment defaults will be particularly pleased with this offer!
After all, well thought-out concepts could potentially prevent such scenarios in the future. However, it remains to be seen whether this ambitious plan will work: Income Marketplace is still a very young platform whose security mechanisms have not yet been tested in a real case.
However, the company has recognised and tackled an important weakness of previous P2P platforms. In my opinion, this makes Income the most innovative provider that the market for personal loans has seen in a long time. My experience with Income Marketplace so far has been consistently positive. I will therefore continue to invest and am very excited about the future development of the platform!
FAQ – Frequently asked questions about Income Marketplace
