Mintos faces 15pc fall in revenue from its lending companies

Mintos is facing a 15 per cent drop in revenue from its lending companies due to the impacts of the war in Ukraine.

Despite this, the European lending marketplace said that it is “confident about weathering the storm” with its available cash balance.

Mintos said lending companies from Russia are willing to make repayments and settle their liabilities and the platform is exploring possibilities to make settlements while remaining in compliance with sanctions.

The platform said that it is exploring Kazakhstan banks as an option for holding KZT funds outside of Russia, where they were primarily held.

Read more: Mintos investors can donate to Ukrainians through the platform

“Transactions with Russia are disabled by many banks due to sanctions; Russia allows transfers exclusively in RUB, but banks are not willing to hold RUB anymore,” Mintos said in a blog on its website.

“Most borrower repayments in Russia are for now current, but transactions are not going through.

“Roughly one seventh of the exposure to Russian loans on Mintos was in RUB. The largest part, six sevenths of the exposure, is in euros, and it’s mostly hedged against risks.

“During this time, Mintos is facing a 15 per cent drop in revenue from lending companies. We are confident about weathering the storm with Mintos’ available cash balance.”

In February, Mintos removed loans from Russian and Ukrainian lending companies from its conservative strategy, before excluding all loans from Russia and Ukraine from its primary market.

This month, Mintos began limiting investor loan exposure to Belarus, exploring alternatives to the SWIFT international payments system and exchanging partial RUB amounts to euros for investors. It has also marked loans from Ukrainian lending company SOS Credit with ‘score withdrawn’.

The seven Russia-based lenders who work with the platform reported that there have been “no changes in borrowers’ discipline” despite ongoing economic sanctions.