Young retail investors flock to alternative lending
Retail investors as young as 18 years of age have been fuelling an increase in alternative lending activity across Europe, it has been revealed.
Alternative loans marketplace Mintos has reported a nine per cent growth in the number of young investors on its platform in the first half of 2021, representing a doubling of young investor sign ups.
More than 75 per cent of Mintos’ investors are now millennials and younger, and the average age for new sign-ups on the platform is 18-25 years old.
Read more: Mintos reaches 400,000 registered customers
Martin Sulte, chief executive of Mintos, said that by 2019, “the most prevalent age range among our clients who chose to start investing on Mintos was 30-34, with the 35-39 age group following right after.”
He added that the trend of increasingly younger investors started in early 2020 and continued throughout the first two quarters of 2021.
Read more: Fifth of young people use social media for financial advice
“In the first months of 2020 we observed an interesting shift—the investor group in the 35-39 of age range was pushed down from the top three new investor groups by the younger investors in the range of 18-24 years old due to the strong influx of their growing interest in alternative assets,” explained Sulte.
Mintos has estimated that young people now hold 45 per cent of the European loan investment market, with approximately €6.6bn (£5.64bn) invested in loans.
Read more: Mintos achieves €10m revenue in 2020 as it nears full authorisation