Debitum

Debitum is a Latvian loan marketplace for mostly secured business loans and one of the few P2P platforms with a genuine investment-firm licence. p2p-investments.de rates Debitum C (5.9/10) with moderate data coverage. The licence is strong - the portfolio behind it is not: around 86% of invested volume sits with a single issuer, and since March 2026 unresolved allegations have been hanging over exactly that portfolio. How we arrive at this grade is explained in our rating methodology.

What does Debitum offer investors?

On Debitum you invest in securitised loans (notes) issued by external loan originators - the focus is on business as well as agricultural and forestry loans in Latvia. The minimum investment is €50, there are no fees for retail investors, and a configurable auto-invest has been available since the end of 2023. Advertised interest ranges from 8 to 16% p.a., with Debitum expecting around 14.8% on average.

There is no secondary market. Anyone who invests locks up their capital until the note matures. A buyback obligation on the loan originators applies after about 90 days of delay - but how robust it is depends on the solvency of the companies behind it.

How we rate Debitum

We assess five criteria with fixed weights. The visible breakdown above summarises the points; here is the reasoning with evidence.

Safety & regulation (6.0/10). The operating company SIA DN Operator holds a licence verifiable in the Latvijas Banka register (no. 06.06.08.728/537), a full investment-firm licence under MiFID II since December 2024. Investor funds are protected up to €20,000 via the Latvian investor compensation scheme - but only in case of platform insolvency or misappropriation, not loan default. So far, so solid. Weaker is the layer beneath: the buyback obligation comes largely from an interconnected network of originators, and the value of the forestry collateral has been contested since March 2026 (see data coverage). We could not verify any published originator skin in the game.

Transparency (5.5/10). At the platform level the picture is good: the 2025 annual report is audited by BDO (IFRS, net profit €507k), the ownership structure is disclosed (sole owner Ingus Salmins since October 2025), and the fee exemption for retail investors is documented. Where it matters, however, the depth is missing: the dominant issuer LFDF presents only an unaudited operating balance sheet at the reporting date, and there are no granular, independently verifiable statistics per originator.

Track record & stability (5.5/10). Debitum has been active with investor money since 2018 and is profitable for the second year running - that speaks for the platform. It absorbed the war-driven default of the originator Chain Finance (Ukraine, around €1.9m) through a subsidiary, though repayment is dragging on for years. The concentration risk weighs heavily: around 86% of the portfolio (as of April 2026) sits with the forestland issuer LFDF.

Returns & terms (7.0/10). 8-16% interest with no investor fees at a €50 minimum is attractive, and the reported default rate is below 5%. Points are deducted because there is no realised net-return history and because, by our methodology, the high interest relative to the market is not a plus - it reflects the price of the concentration risk.

Investor experience & liquidity (5.5/10). A low entry hurdle, no fees and a usable auto-invest stand against one clear negative: no liquidity at all (no secondary market, no early exit) and no German-language interface.

Data coverage and open questions

Our grade rests on 18 of 25 evidence questions that could be answered from reliable sources - data coverage: moderate. We name three gaps openly: Debitum publishes no verifiable originator skin in the game, no audited balance sheet for its largest issuer LFDF, and no independently verifiable history of realised returns.

On top of that comes an unresolved point that materially weighs down the grade: in March 2026, finance blogger Karsten Aichholz (karsten.me) published allegations against the LFDF forestry portfolio - based on 652 land-registry entries and 52 annual reports: inflated markups on land purchases via related companies and an unexplained inventory gap of €24.6m between the balance sheet and the land registry. Debitum responded but, as we read it, did not clear up the central points. No regulatory action by Latvijas Banka is known so far. We do not treat the allegation as proven - but as a real, unresolved risk that feeds into the grade.

Who Debitum suits - and who it does not

Debitum is not for beginners and not for safety-oriented investors. The platform can be of interest as a small, deliberately chosen admixture for experienced investors who understand and accept the concentration risk in the forestland portfolio - and who know their capital is locked until maturity. Anyone who invests here should keep the amount small and diversify across several platforms. As long as the allegations around LFDF remain unresolved, restraint is the sober consequence of our rating.