Investing on Mintos is simple, no matter your level of investing experience, so it doesn’t take long to get started! This article outlines the recommended steps to begin your investing journey.
Setting your investment goals
When you invest on Mintos, it’s through an asset called Notes. These financial instruments allow you to invest in loans in a regulated environment and earn a passive income at fixed interest rates.
If you want to build wealth in the long term, passive investments like Notes can be an effective way to do this. They generate regular income – so you start to earn returns straight away. Plus, if you contribute regularly and reinvest your returns, your funds begin to grow at an ever-accelerating rate (assuming consistent repayments). To see how much your money could grow on Mintos, try out our online calculator.
But before you put your money to work, we suggest setting some investment goals. In the investing world, goals are proven to help you hold on to your better-performing investments for longer1.
They also help you focus on the big picture of what you want to achieve rather than the smaller wins (or losses). To learn more about goal-setting, you can visit our Investor Academy.
Navigating your Mintos account
Once you’ve set your goals, it’s time to add funds to your Mintos account. It can be as little as €50, which is the minimum investment for Notes on Mintos. Next, we suggest getting familiar with your Mintos account.
When you log in, you arrive at the Overview page, where you can see a high-level summary of your funds and investments.
And the Invest section is where you put your money to work! You can view Notes currently available for investment (via Browse listings) and set up your first investment strategy.
Setting up your first strategy
To add a new strategy, go to the Invest section of your account.
You can choose from various strategies (predefined or custom automated), which are designed to suit different levels of investing experience, goals, and risk tolerance.
Mintos strategies
If you prefer a fully automated approach, you could choose one of Mintos’ predefined strategies:
- The Diversified strategy spreads risk across a wide selection of investments, resulting in the highest level of diversification out of the Mintos strategies.
- The Conservative strategy focuses on quality – investing in Notes for lending companies with the most resilient portfolios.
- The High-yield strategy maximizes potential returns by investing in Notes with the highest interest rates.
These strategies work for portfolios of any size and can be set up in just a few minutes. Based on market data and algorithms, the strategies decide which Notes to invest in on your behalf. All of the Notes are backed by loans with a buyback obligation. Plus, if you don’t want to wait for your investments to reach maturity, you can cash out of your Mintos strategies anytime (assuming normal market conditions).
If this approach sounds like you, we suggest learning more about the different Mintos strategies.
Custom automated strategies
If you enjoy a hands-on approach, you may prefer a custom strategy, where you create the strategy’s settings based on your investing preferences. You can choose from more than 15 criteria, such as underlying loan term, underlying loan type, country, interest rate, and more.
A custom automated strategy saves you time and effort by automatically investing based on criteria you’ve already set. You can create as many custom automated strategies as you like and start and stop them anytime.
When setting up a custom automated strategy, we suggest checking the diversification settings before you save and activate it. Default diversification is calculated according to a lending company’s available investments plus investment amounts over the previous 4 weeks. You can manually choose diversification values, however, this can increase the potential of the strategy being unfulfilled if a diversification value is assigned to a lending company with no available Notes.
If you’d like to know more about custom automated strategies, you can become an expert through the Investor Academy.
Manual investing
If you prefer a completely manual approach, you can pick and review individual Notes investments and be in complete control of creating your Mintos portfolio. With this approach, we suggest regularly checking in on your Mintos account to make sure you don’t have any funds sitting idle from finished investments.
To see which Notes are available for investment, see Browse listings in the Invest section of your account.
Here, you can view the Primary Market, which features Notes currently available for investment on Mintos, and the Secondary Market, where investors on Mintos buy and sell Notes from each other.
To find Notes that match your investing preferences, you can select a range for the interest rate and remaining term. Plus, you can filter for currency, Mintos Risk Score, underlying loan type, and more.
Overall, choosing a strategy (whether automated or manual) often depends on personal preference and previous experience. Also, it’s important that your strategies align with your investment goals and risk tolerance.
The importance of diversification
An important consideration is diversification – especially if you’ve set up custom strategies or are going to invest manually. Diversification is an investment strategy that aims to reduce investment risk by spreading it across multiple investments with different characteristics. Learn more about creating a diversified portfolio on Mintos.
Comparing investing strategies on Mintos
Managing your portfolio
Once your strategies are investing, you can begin managing your portfolio. If you opt for a Mintos strategy, your portfolio needs very little managing – it’s as simple as checking your account Overview.
If you create a custom automated strategy, we suggest you review it from time to time to ensure the strategy is investing efficiently based on your chosen settings. In the Invest section of your account, you can view, update, and delete your existing strategies, plus create new ones.
For a detailed view of your current (and finished) investments, you can head to the Portfolio section, where you will see a list of all the Notes you’ve invested in (currently and in the past). You can also check all details of the Notes and their underlying loans. And If at any time you’d like to see how diversified your Mintos portfolio is, you can visit the Diversification section of your account.
To make portfolio tracking even more convenient, download the Mintos mobile app to monitor your investments on the go.
Polishing your investment knowledge
Even the most experienced investors have room to grow! So when starting out on Mintos, we always suggest checking out the Mintos Investor Academy. With topics ranging from beginner to advanced, there’s something for everyone.
Plus, to stay up to date with what’s happening on Mintos and the wider investment market, make sure you’re signed up for the newsletter in your account settings to receive the monthly Mintos Insight. You can read previous installments in the Mintos Insight library.
Ready, set, invest!
We’re excited to be with you as you start your Mintos journey. If at any time you require guidance, you can access the Mintos Help Center through the Help section of your account or join the discussions in the Mintos community.
- Barber, B. M., & Odean, T., (2011). The Behavior of Individual Investors.
