Esketit Review 2026: Is Esketit Safe? Returns, Risks, Alternatives

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Esketit is a P2P lending platform founded in 2020 by Davis Barons and Matiss Ansviesulis, who also started the consumer lender AvaFin (formerly Creamfinance). It pays around 11% a year on loans originated in Latvia, Kazakhstan, the UAE, Malaysia and a few other places, and it charges investors no platform fees.

My short verdict: Esketit is a usable platform with a decent yield, but it’s one of the riskier names in European P2P. It holds no financial services license, most of its lenders belong to its own founders, and the group guarantee that once backed the loans has gone. A small allocation from someone who already understands those trade-offs is reasonable. A core holding isn’t.

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Esketit at a Glance

Figures are from Esketit’s homepage, FAQ, fees page and Terms of Use, checked in October 2026.

What Is Esketit?

Esketit is a marketplace where you buy claim rights on loans that its partner lenders have issued. You don’t lend to borrowers directly. A lender makes the loan, assigns the claim to you under an electronic agreement, and repays you with interest as the borrower pays. Esketit runs the platform, collects the money and passes it on.

The platform has bought about EUR 1.03 billion of claims since launch and says it has paid investors about EUR 20.9 million in interest. Outside reviewers put the outstanding portfolio at roughly EUR 47 million and the investor base at more than 30,000, with an average portfolio of about EUR 3,900. Esketit doesn’t show an outstanding-portfolio figure on its homepage, so treat the first two numbers as third-party estimates.

Who Runs Esketit?

Davis Barons and Matiss Ansviesulis co-founded Creamfinance in 2012, which later became AvaFin Group. They own Esketit equally, according to re:think P2P‘s reading of the Irish register. Ieva Grigaļūne became CEO in July 2025 after Vitālijs Zalovs stepped down to an advisory role. She spent close to ten years at Mintos before moving to Esketit. A Chief Legal Officer joined in mid-2025 as well, and Esketit said at the time that it was taking steps toward licensing. It hasn’t named a regulator, a license type or a date.

The founders also own most of the lenders on the platform. That’s the central fact about Esketit.

Is Esketit Regulated?

No. Esketit’s own footer says it isn’t regulated under any financial services license, and the Terms of Use state that your funds are held in a segregated bank account, aren’t a deposit, and aren’t covered by any compensation scheme.

That matters because several platforms I’ve reviewed, like Afranga and Nectaro, do hold licenses. Regulation brings capital requirements, audits and, in Nectaro’s case, an investor compensation scheme. Esketit has none of that. It also doesn’t appear in Eurocrowd’s list of authorized European crowdfunding service providers, which is built from ESMA’s register as of January 2026.

In September 2026 the Bank of Latvia granted an investment firm license to SIA IBC Invest, a company owned by the same two founders. Some early coverage read that as Esketit becoming regulated. It didn’t. The license belongs to a separate venture called Goodeve, which hasn’t launched yet. Esketit’s status is unchanged.

Some sites still describe Esketit as ECSP licensed. I found no evidence of that, and Esketit itself says otherwise.

Is Esketit Safe?

It carries more risk than most platforms I’d recommend, and your protection rests on the lenders rather than on any outside party.

Your money sits in a segregated bank account in Esketit’s name, and the Terms say it’s kept apart from the company’s own funds. That’s a contractual promise. No supervisor checks it.

The buyback is the second layer. On most loans, the lender must repurchase a claim once the borrower is more than 60 days late, paying back your principal plus accrued interest. re:think P2P reports that every lender has honored it so far, and I couldn’t find a report of a missed one. A buyback is only as good as the lender behind it, though, and these lenders are small, mostly young and owned by the people who own the platform.

The group guarantee is gone. Esketit’s How It Works page still describes an AvaFin Holding guarantee that would step in if a lender couldn’t honor its buyback. AvaFin announced in June 2025 that it was leaving P2P funding and repurchasing its loans, so that guarantee has nothing left to attach to. Newer claims, such as the recent Lionpro financing, carry a guarantee from the borrowing group instead.

The Terms also change the order of payments after a default. Esketit’s fees and the costs of collection come out first, and investors are paid after that, pro rata. That’s a standard enough clause, but it means recoveries on a bad loan reach you last.

Esketit publishes no audited accounts for the platform itself. I couldn’t find an annual report or a named external auditor.

If you want the wider picture on these risks, my guide to P2P lending covers how buybacks and platform failure work across the industry.

Loan Originators

Esketit’s lender page lists eight lenders today:

• Jet Finance: car loans in Kazakhstan, average rate 10%, EUR 84.8 million issued on the platform.
• JMD Investments: business loans in Latvia, 12%, EUR 12.5 million issued. Founder-owned.
• Mojo Capital: business loans from the UAE, 11%, EUR 6.5 million issued. Founder-owned.
• MDI Finance: the holding company behind a Sri Lankan consumer lender, 12%, EUR 13.9 million issued. Founder-owned.
• Nimbura: consumer loans in Malaysia, 11%, EUR 6.8 million issued. Founder-owned.
• Credus Capital: mortgage-backed loans in Latvia, 7%, EUR 300,000 issued. Privately owned.
• Spanda Capital: business loans backed by Spanish defaulted-debt portfolios, 11%. Founder-owned.
• Lionpro: working-capital financing for an animal-feed ingredient trader, 8%, added in October 2026.

Five of the eight are founder-owned. Esketit sells that as skin in the game, and there’s something to it, since the people who own the platform also bear the loss if a lender fails. It also means the buyback comes from the founders’ own companies, which makes the whole structure a bet on one group rather than a spread across independent lenders.

re:think P2P reported in August 2026 that Spanda is leaving Esketit after selling its portfolio to an international NPL investor, with most remaining loans due to be bought back by the end of September 2026 and the rest by Q1 2027, repaid through Mojo Capital. I couldn’t find an announcement from Esketit confirming this, and Esketit’s own pages still list Spanda, so treat it as reported but unconfirmed.

Several lenders have thin public financials. Third-party reviewers describe Mojo’s accounts as unaudited and Spanda’s track record as short. The AvaFin lenders and Money for Finance in Jordan have already left.

Lionpro is a different kind of borrower. It’s a trading company, not a lender, with audited 2025 revenue of EUR 61.7 million and a net profit of EUR 0.63 million. Esketit says the financing is backed by a group guarantee and a pledge over trading assets, and that a World Bank guarantee covering part of its Kenyan business doesn’t extend to claims bought on Esketit.

Returns

Esketit’s homepage shows an 11.86% average interest rate. Individual lenders pay between 7% and 12%. Esketit adds 0.5% extra interest above EUR 25,000 invested and 1% above EUR 50,000, but only on claims from Spanda, Mojo and MDI Finance.

P2P Dash, which tracks investor-submitted portfolios, shows a median net return of 11.5% as of October 2026, with the middle half of investors between 10.8% and 12.4%. That figure comes from user-entered data and isn’t verified. Cash drag explains part of the gap between stated rates and net results: the median investor there held 3.7% of funds uninvested.

Esketit advertises zero defaults, and outside reviewers describe the portfolio as fully performing. That says little about what happens in a downturn.

Fees

Esketit charges no platform fees, no portfolio fees, no withdrawal fees and no inactivity fees, and the secondary market is free. The only charge is 2% on top-ups made by card, Google Pay or Apple Pay. A bank transfer costs nothing. The lenders pay Esketit a commission, which averages around 2% according to re:think P2P.

Esketit’s FAQ says taxes on your interest are your responsibility, and re:think P2P reports that nothing is withheld. The platform provides an income statement you can download.

Auto-Purchase and the Secondary Market

Auto-purchase comes in two forms. A custom strategy filters by lender, country, term, rate and loan type. The Esketit strategy, called Diversified, spreads your money across the available lenders on rules Esketit sets. Under the Terms, Esketit can change the terms of the claims that auto-purchase buys without your prior approval, though it says it will notify you first. Check what the strategy is buying from time to time.

Esketit’s FAQ says you can exit early on the secondary market, with no fees. Claims sell at a premium of up to 2% or a discount of up to 20%, and interest keeps accruing while a claim is listed. That works on the Croatian entity.

It didn’t work for everyone in late 2025. When Esketit moved its operations from Ireland to Croatia, it switched off the secondary market and the auto-purchase cash-out for claims held under the Irish entity, and investors there are still waiting for claims to mature or be repaid. A reviewer on Trustpilot was still complaining about the locked Irish allocation in August 2026. If you’re a new investor, you’ll sign up with the Croatian entity and this doesn’t apply to your claims. It does show how the platform behaves when it changes structure.

The Terms also let Esketit suspend buying and selling of claims at its sole discretion, sometimes without notice, and they exclude liability for any loss that follows. Don’t count on being able to sell on the day you need to.

Ireland to Croatia

Esketit announced in October 2025 that it was opening a Croatian entity, Esketit Platform d.o.o. Assignment agreements concluded on or before October 15, 2025 stay in force with Esketit Platform Limited in Ireland. Irish-entity investors had to register again under the Croatian terms and divert their repayments to keep full access. Ireland sits on the Terms’ list of prohibited countries, along with the United States, so residents of either can’t sign up.

The two companies are legally separate and can’t bind each other. If you’re an existing investor, check which entity holds each of your claims.

Who Is Esketit Best For?

Esketit suits you if you:

• Want 10% to 12% and can accept an unregulated platform
• Already hold regulated platforms and want a small extra position
• Are comfortable with lenders owned by the platform’s founders
• Check your portfolio now and then and don’t need guaranteed access to your cash

It’s a poor fit if you want regulated protection, need quick access to your capital, or want lenders that are independent of the platform owner.

How Esketit Compares

Mintos is far larger, holds a license, and works with dozens of independent lenders, so a single owner’s troubles can’t sink your whole portfolio the way they could on Esketit.

PeerBerry is the closest in style, with consumer loans and a buyback. Afranga and Nectaro both carry regulatory licenses that Esketit lacks, and I’d put either ahead of it for risk reasons. My ranked list of European P2P lending platforms shows where each one sits.

Bonuses

New investors can get 0.5% cashback on purchases in their first 90 days. Esketit lists no promo code, and I couldn’t confirm the current cashback terms on Esketit’s own pages, so check the sign-up screen. The referral program pays both sides 1% of the referred investor’s first purchases, up to EUR 1,000, once the referral buys a claim within 30 days of registering. Esketit has run a temporary 2% referral bonus before.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Esketit safe?

Esketit is unregulated, so no supervisor checks its accounts and no compensation scheme covers you. Your funds sit in a segregated bank account, and most loans carry a 60-day lender buyback, but most of those lenders belong to Esketit’s founders. Capital is at risk, and a small allocation fits the risk better than a large one.

Is Esketit regulated?

No. Esketit says on its own website that it isn’t regulated under any financial services license. A Latvian investment firm license issued in September 2026 belongs to a separate founder-owned company linked to a new platform called Goodeve, not to Esketit.

What returns can I earn on Esketit?

Esketit shows an 11.86% average interest rate, with lenders paying between 7% and 12%. Investor-reported net returns come in around 11.5%, though that data isn’t verified.

Does Esketit have a buyback guarantee?

Most loans do. If a borrower is more than 60 days late, the lender repurchases the claim and pays back principal and accrued interest. The AvaFin group guarantee that used to stand behind the lenders no longer applies, so the buyback depends on each lender’s own finances.

Can I sell my Esketit investments early?

Yes, on the secondary market, which is free and runs at a premium of up to 2% or a discount of up to 20%. Esketit can suspend it at its discretion. Claims held under the old Irish entity can’t be sold and run to maturity.

What is the minimum investment on Esketit?

EUR 10 per claim on the primary market.

Who owns Esketit?

Davis Barons and Matiss Ansviesulis, the co-founders of AvaFin Group, own the platform and most of its lenders.

My Verdict

Esketit has been running since 2020, has moved over a billion euros of claims, pays around 11%, and charges investors nothing to use it. Those are real strengths.

The weaknesses are structural. It has no license and no investor compensation scheme. Most lenders are owned by the founders, so the buyback comes from the same pocket as the platform. The group guarantee has gone, one lender is reportedly leaving, and in 2025 the platform shut off liquidity for a group of investors on short notice. Esketit hasn’t published audited accounts for itself.

I’d rate it 2.5 out of 5. If you want exposure, start small, spread across lenders, and keep it to money you can leave alone for the length of the loans. If a regulated platform fits your goals, start with the ones in my ranked list.

Visit Esketit

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