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Viainvest review 2025: My opinion on the P2P provider

Viainvest stands out among P2P providers: you won’t find 13% interest, asset-backed investments and an investment brokerage licence anywhere else! I’d like to explain whether it’s really worth it and what you should bear in mind based on my own experience.

In brief:

  • Viainvest is a P2P provider with only one lender that has been operating very successfully for years and is particularly transparent.
  • The company holds a licence as an investment brokerage firm and offers personal loans in the form of asset-backed investments.
  • Due to its good business figures and strict regulatory requirements, I consider Viainvest to be safer than many of its competitors.
  • Despite technical problems in the past, investors have reliably received high interest rates here for years. My Viainvest experience has also been consistently positive.
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79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

Viainvest: Provider with a lot of experience in the P2P business

P2P loans have been providing investors with high interest rates for years, but are not without risk. Some black sheep in the industry are barely regulated or not regulated at all and investors never really know what is going on behind the closed doors.

Viainvest takes exactly the opposite approach: the Latvian company is regulated by a financial supervisory authority and holds an IBF (‘Investment Brokerage Firm’) licence, which obliges it to provide a high level of transparency and security for investors.

(01/2025)

However, the actual business model is still the same: Investors can use the platform to invest their capital in personal loans from several countries. These are initiated and managed by the ViaSMS Group. There are no other providers on Viainvest, as it is not a marketplace like its competitor Mintos, for example.

For our investment, we receive very high interest rates of up to 13 per cent with a standard term of 6 months for personal loans. In my experience, this period is a sweet spot for consumer loans, as longer and shorter terms each come with their own problems.

The borrowers come from Sweden, Latvia, Poland, Romania, the Philippines, Vietnam and the Czech Republic. An average of 315 euros per loan is financed via Viainvest. All in all, the Latvian company raises 9.6 million euros in loans per month!

You have been able to invest in personal loans since 2016. My experience as an investor on this platform goes back several years. Several personal interviews have also confirmed the professional impression of the company for me.

The parent company ViaSMS Group manages a loan portfolio of 25.9 million euros and has more than 260 employees worldwide. The company’s successes are particularly noteworthy, as in this form of investment our capital and returns are dependent on the condition of the platform and the loan originator.

Banner - viainvest
79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

All the most important data at a glance:

Founded:2009
Company headquarters:Riga, Latvia
Regulated:Yes, by the Financial and Capital Market Commission
Number of investors:Over 42,000 investors (01/2025)
Invested capital:+568 million euros (01/2025)
Yield:Annual return of 13%
Minimum investment amount:EUR 1
Redemption guarantee:Yes
Auto Invest:Yes
Secondary market:No
Issue of a tax certificate:Yes
Loyalty programme for investors:No
Starting bonus:1% cashback after 90 days (Get with this link*)
Rating:See our P2P platform rating
Experience report:Read my Viainvest experience her

What changes with the IBF licence

Viainvest has held an investment brokerage firm licence since 2022. This step has changed a number of things in the structure of the company and the granting of loans. Overall, investors now benefit from greater security and better legal options in the event of defaults and crises.

The business model naturally continues to be the financing of personal loans, but these are now grouped together in loan packages known as ‘asset-backed securities’, each of which is an independent financial instrument and has an ISIN.

Investors are now investing their money in these packages instead of in individual private loans as before. In doing so, they are following the strict requirements of the EU. For a better overview, these loan packages are organised by content: They contain similar loans, for example from the same country of origin or with the same interest rate.

The ViaSMS Group has also issued bonds via the NASDAQ OMX Baltic in Tallinn. This is accompanied by high transparency requirements, which in turn benefit us investors: We have access to audited annual reports,which are (somewhat belatedly) available online.

This gives us a better insight into the state of Viainvest’s parent company. In my experience, the platform is a leader in terms of transparency in the P2P sector.

My Viainvest experience: simple investing, manual or automatic

As with almost all P2P providers, investing with Viainvest is particularly easy, which is not surprising as the platforms want to encourage us to invest as much money as possible! My Viainvest experience with the website and the investment tools is correspondingly positive. There are two options here:

Manual investment

With a manual investment, we choose which of the many loan packages we want to invest our money in. The process is very simple: A list of available asset-backed securities (loan packages) appears under the ‘Invest’ tab. Here you select the product that interests you and click on the ‘Invest’ button.

A new page will then open with all relevant information on the selected product. Here you can also see how much of the available amount has already been financed by other investors. If everything fits, you can enter the desired amount and click on the ‘Invest’ button again.

The minimum amount for a manual investment at Viainvest is just 10 euros. In my experience, this is a good value – other providers require a minimum amount of up to 50 euros, but investments from one euro are also possible with some competitors.

Automatic investing

If you don’t feel like selecting all the loans by hand, you can use the available auto-invest function. As soon as capital is available (for example, because a current loan package has been repaid), it is automatically reinvested in new products based on your specifications.

To do this, click on the ‘Invest’ tab and then on ‘Auto invest’ on the page that opens. If you have already created an auto invest portfolio, it will appear here. Otherwise, you have the option of creating one using the ‘Create New’ button.

You have a wide range of options in the settings for your Auto-Invest portfolio: The size of your portfolio in euros, the maximum amount to be invested in a single asset, the minimum and maximum interest rate, the minimum and maximum term and the countries of origin, represented by the respective subsidiaries.

You can also choose whether your investments should have a buyback guarantee. I will explain exactly what this involves in more detail in the next section. For all those who do not yet have any Viainvest experience, I would generally recommend selecting ‘Yes’ under ‘Buyback obligation’!

The minimum amount for an auto-investment is 50 euros, which is significantly more than if you invest manually. This makes diversification difficult, especially for smaller assets, as you can only invest in a limited number of loan packages. Apart from this disadvantage, however, the auto-invest function is very useful and is also suitable for beginners or investors who have not yet gained any Viainvest experience.

Banner - viainvest
79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

Risk and collateral with Viainvest – my experience

Personal loans are an excellent investment with high interest rates – as long as they are repaid by the borrower as agreed. However, if this is not the case, things can quickly become uncomfortable! In general, there are three possible solutions in the P2P sector:

  1. The loan originator (in this case the ViaSMS Group) provides a buyback guarantee: if a borrower is in arrears with payment for an agreed number of days, the company buys out the debt and pays you back your money plus interest.
  2. There is no guarantee and a loan that is not repaid will be a total loss for you. Such losses can be avoided or at least offset with a good preliminary check and strong interest rates.
  3. Loans are backed by collateral, such as property with the provider Estateguru or agricultural machinery, grain and co. with Lande. If the agreed repayment does not materialise, this collateral is collected or sold and the loans and interest are repaid.

Viainvest buyback guarantee among investors

Viainvest mainly uses the first model: the available Buyback guarantee takes effect in the event of a payment default of more than 60 days. ViaSMS then buys the debt from the investors together with the interest. Investors receive their money immediately so that no outstanding loans of more than 60 days remain in our portfolio.

This option is particularly popular with investors as they hardly have to worry about individual loans. My Viainvest experience with the buyback guarantee has also been positive so far: everything went as promised and repayment was quick and problem-free.

However, we should not forget that the function of a buyback guarantee depends on the state of the company in question: if the ViaSMS Group should ever slip into financial difficulties or even insolvency, there is no guarantee that the buybacks will continue to be processed so smoothly. There is no official contingency plan for this scenario.

The condition of the Group is therefore crucial. This is clearly visible in the annual reports on the website, but unfortunately not always up to date. The VisaSMS Group has been operating very successfully for years (with the exception of during the Covid crisis), so there is no major threat to Viainvest. However, experience with other P2P providers has shown that this situation can change quite quickly. A regular look at the business figures is therefore generally recommended.

The company also offers a small number of business loans that work with option three, i.e. depositing collateral. However, I have no experience with Viainvest’s business loans, as I focus on the platform’s consumer loans – which I simply consider to be much more lucrative.

Banner - viainvest
79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

Risks and problems of the platform

The IBF licence is generally regarded as the accolade for the popular platform – but the transition was anything but easy for investors! In order to meet the requirements of Latvian and EU regulations, some changes were necessary, which unfortunately did not go smoothly.

Technical problems plagued the platform, especially in 2022, and caused a number of investors to leave in frustration. It turned out that Viainvest had no experience with such a major change – no wonder, as there is no real blueprint for the switch to asset-based securities.

The disappearance of the ‘buyback’ button even caused some investors to question the company’s policy: had they simply removed the important security function without the consent of investors? Although everything turned out fine in the end, the problems at this stage were very unpleasant.

The parent company, the ViaSMS Group, also made a good impression during this phase and showed a strong performance: the company generated a profit of more than 2.2 million euros in 2021 and was able to increase its loan portfolio from 11.7 million euros in the previous year to 14.9 million euros.

The reserves for doubtful loans from the COVID period, which were created for security reasons, have also been reduced. In my opinion, this is a positive sign that fits in with my Viainvest experience and the general direction of the Group.

At Viainvest, non-performing loans (NPLs) account for just 2.8 per cent of the portfolio, which corresponds to just under 430,000 euros. In my experience, this is a pretty good figure for a P2P platform like Viainvest!

Crisis performance

The COVID crisis shook the financial markets and did not leave Viainvest unscathed. The company opted for a more cautious approach and, for example, recognised provisions to compensate for possible loan defaults. Together with other measures and additional costs, this led to a small loss of around 280,000 euros in 2020.

Viainvest thus manoeuvred comparatively well through this difficult period. The losses were easily recouped in retrospect and the Group continues to focus on growth. It should be noted that the Group has always been profitable despite its expansion – with the exception of 2020, the year of the pandemic.

The Ukraine crisis did not affect the platform either. The ViaSMS Group does not grant loans in either Ukraine or Russia and was therefore not affected by the Russian attack.

A third ‘crisis’ is the increase in key interest rates in 2022, which could lead to a rise in demand for P2P loans due to the higher costs of bank loans. At the same time, it is possible that investors will prefer to invest their money in other products in future and withdraw it from Viainvest.

However, there is no experience of this yet (P2P loans emerged during a long period of low interest rates and are now experiencing higher key interest rates for the first time), so it is too early to predict how things will develop.

Viainvest makes your tax return easy

Capital gains tax of 25% plus solidarity surcharge and church tax is levied on profits from P2P loans. This means that personal loans are no different from investment forms such as shares or ETFs. However, singles in Germany are currently subject to a tax-free allowance of 1,000 euros. Only income that exceeds this limit is taxable.

I’ve already had several years of experience with Viainvest and have never had a problem with taxes during this time: The company issues you a tax assessment with just a few clicks, which you can pass on to your tax advisor or use for your tax return. The only disadvantage is that the tax assessment is not always available immediately at the start of the new year.

The Latvian supervisory authorities ensure that Viainvest levies a withholding tax of 5 per cent on its investors. But don’t worry: you can use a double taxation agreement with Latvia and all you have to do is submit a proof of residence, which you can obtain from your tax office, to Viainvest. My experience with this process has been very good so far – I haven’t had any problems. However, other investors have reported that their application was not recognised.

Advantages and disadvantages of Viainvest

Based on my experience to date and the in-depth analysis of the company and the Group, the following advantages and disadvantages emerge:

Advantages

  • At Viainvest, you invest your money exclusively in loans from the ViaSMS Group. It is successful, profitable and provides transparent insight into all business areas. That is much more than we can say about many other providers in the P2P market!
  • Investors currently receive 13 per cent interest with Viainvest. In my experience with other platforms, this puts the company in a leading position.
  • Viainvest is regulated in accordance with EU directives and is monitored by European and Latvian authorities. An IBF licence has also been in place since 2022 – a real accolade for the company. So everything is above board here.
  • There is a buy-back guarantee for almost all loans (some business loans are excluded, for example), which has worked in the past. Investors therefore do not need to worry about defaults on individual loans for the time being.
  • The new ‘Asset Backed Securities’ are packages of private loans with their own ISIN. They form an exciting new investment vehicle in the area of P2P loans.
  • In my experience, Viainvest does not have a cash drag like other platforms. This means that you don’t have to wait a long time for suitable loans (which effectively reduces your return).

Disadvantages

  • Viainvest is one of the few platforms in the European P2P market to levy a withholding tax. Although this is only 5 per cent and can be avoided in some cases with a certificate of residence, it is still a very unpleasant and annoying burden.
  • Viainvest is unfortunately known for its IT problems, especially during the changeover to IBF-compliant products. For a large company with a large number of customers, this should never happen!
  • It is not possible to sell investments prematurely on a separate secondary market. Most competitors offer such a marketplace and thus help investors to get out of a loan quickly in an emergency.
  • When you invest, you are completely dependent on the success of the ViaSMS Group. As this is the only lender on the platform, all loans logically originate from this company. In the event of economic difficulties, your capital could be at risk.
Banner - viainvest
79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

Conclusion: My Viainvest experience in 2025

Viainvest has recently lost a lot of its reputation due to technical glitches and the switch to IBF-compliant asset-backed securities. Even if the problems were very annoying, the simple truth remains: If you are looking for a reliable platform with high interest rates, there is no way around Viainvest!

My experiences in recent years have always been positive, in other words: I have achieved my targeted return without any problems, always received my money and was able to rely on the buyback guarantee.

Mit 13 Prozent sind die P2P-Kredite dort wirklich erstklassig verzinst.Sie werden als sogenannte Asset Backed Securities”, in other words, a kind of bundle of different personal loans. Viainvest has created this new offering because the company has to comply with the strict requirements of the European Union. This was the only way they could obtain a coveted IBF (‘Investment Brokerage Firm’) licence.

The licence is a kind of accolade for the company, which has been offering reliable interest rates since 2016. For investors, it offers the advantage that there is now even greater transparency. The audited annual reports can be viewed on the website and help interested investors to gain an impression of the parent company ViaSMS.

With Viainvest, you can only invest in private loans from the ViaSMS Group. This makes you dependent on their success; at the same time, however, it also makes due diligence easier. A quick glance is enough to realise that the Group has always been profitable – with the exception of the COVID crisis year 2022 – and recently recorded profits in the millions.

The signs are pointing to growth here, so investors do not need to worry about stability at the moment. Based on my experience in the P2P market, I would therefore describe Viainvest as one of the most exciting providers. Personally, I will therefore triple my investment on the platform this year!

Banner - viainvest
79/100
Punkte
Return: 12% interest
Investors: over 40,000
1% cashback after 90 days
REDEEM BONUS*

FAQ – Frequently asked questions about Viainvest

About our author

Aleks Bleck is the face of Northern Finance and was already a shareholder, lender and ETF investor at the age of 18. His focus is on P2P loans and passive ETFs. Aleks founded Northern Finance in 2017 while studying business administration in Lu00fcneburg.

He built up the YouTube channel alongside his main job in investment and corporate banking before finally focusing full-time on Northern Finance.

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