Hive5 Review 2026 – Risks, Red Flags, and Why I No Longer Recommend It

When I first reviewed Hive5 in late 2024, I called it one of my top three P2P lending platforms. Solid double-digit returns, a clean interface, a credible-looking team. I recommended it without hesitation.

I was wrong. Over the past year, enough has surfaced about Hive5 that I no longer trust the platform. I’ve removed it from my list of best European P2P lending platforms and pulled all affiliate links from this site.

This rewrite explains what changed.

Short answer if you’re here asking whether Hive5 is legit: it’s a real, audited company that’s still paying investors out, so I don’t call it a scam. It’s also unregulated, and every lender on the platform belongs to the group that owns it. That’s a risk profile I won’t accept for double-digit interest.

The Credon Connection

Hive5’s majority shareholder is Andrius Rupšys, the entrepreneur behind Ruptela. What wasn’t clear when I wrote the original review is who built the loan management software Hive5 runs on, and what that person’s other ventures look like.

Juozas Rupšys, Andrius’s godfather, developed the creditonline.eu platform that powers Hive5. He also owned 100% of Credon P2P, a Croatian peer-to-peer lender that froze withdrawals in early 2023 and lost investor funds.

Same software lineage. Same family network. Same jurisdiction. Same business model. That’s not a coincidence I can shrug off.

Insider-Owned Loan Originators

When I first wrote about Hive5, its loans came from Ekspres Pożyczka in Poland, Ruptela in Lithuania and Mana Concept in Spain, all sharing owners with the platform. The lineup has since changed. Ekspres Pożyczka stopped listing loans on Hive5 in March 2025. As of October 2026 the lenders are Finjet in Spain (Mana Concept’s consumer brand), Credilink in Romania and Firmeo, a Polish SME lender the group started in October 2025. All three sit inside Hive Finance Group, the same group that owns the marketplace.

In a normal P2P marketplace, the platform is the matchmaker. Investor money flows to independent borrowers, and the platform earns fees for facilitating the transaction. When the same people own both ends, you don’t have a marketplace. You have a closed loop where investor capital can be routed wherever the insiders need it.

That structure is also exactly what enabled some of the most painful collapses in European P2P history, including Envestio, Kuetzal, and Monethera.

I missed this in the original review. I shouldn’t have.

Pushback Against Critics

Critics in this orbit have faced pushback. Juozas Rupšys personally sued an independent reviewer over allegations published about him. Two critical YouTube videos disappeared after complaints. Reports of neutral Trustpilot reviews being blocked.

Pushing critics out of the conversation is one of the more reliable scam-precursor patterns I’ve seen in this industry. Healthy networks don’t need to do it.

Profitability Claims vs. Filings

In public communications around 2022-2023, Hive5’s then-CEO Ričardas Vandzinskas described the company as profitable. The 2022 financial filings showed a €755,000 loss.

Hive Finance Group says 2024 was its first profitable year on a consolidated basis: €11.5M revenue and €1.9M EBITDA, audited by UAB Veritas Auditas. That’s a real improvement and worth noting.

The earlier gap between public messaging and audited filings is still telling. It’s the kind of thing that shows how a company talks about itself when the numbers don’t yet back it up.

“But Withdrawals Are Working”

I know. I read the same Trustpilot reviews. SEPA payouts in 1-2 days. People getting their money. That’s true today.

It was also true of Envestio, Kuetzal, and Monethera right up until the day it wasn’t. P2P platform collapses don’t telegraph themselves. They look perfectly fine until they don’t, and the reassurance of yesterday’s withdrawal tells you almost nothing about tomorrow’s.

The structural problems (insider loan originators, opaque software lineage, founder ties to a collapsed platform, a pattern of suppressing criticism) don’t get cancelled out by the platform processing your last payout on time.

What I’m Doing

I’ve taken it off my best P2P lending platforms list. I’ve removed every affiliate link to the platform from this site.

I’m not here to tell anyone what to do with their money. But if you’re invested in Hive5, take a hard look at the structural issues above and decide whether you’d put fresh capital in today knowing what you now know. If the answer is no, the question is whether you should be leaving existing capital in either.

Where things stand in 2026

A lot has moved since my original review:

• Ričardas Vandzinskas sold his 35% stake to Ruptela Group in October 2025 and left the company. Andrius Rupšys keeps 65%, and Ruptela, the company he founded, holds the rest.
• Krisjanis Znotins became Group CEO in May 2026, succeeding Aurimas Kačinskas, who took the role in May 2025. A new COO and Chief Risk Officer followed in August 2026.
• Reiz Tech bought CreditOnline, the loan software behind Hive5, in November 2025, and Juozas Rupšys stepped away from it.
• Hive5 launched a secondary market in late September 2026. Selling is free, but you need a buyer, and you can discount up to 50% to find one.
• Advertised rates run from 13% to 16% depending on lender and term, with a €10 minimum. Lenders have to buy back loans more than 60 days late, which is only as good as the lender’s ability to pay.
• Hive5 still says plainly that it doesn’t operate under any financial services license. There’s no investor compensation scheme behind it.

These are real developments, and a 2026 review should reflect them. They don’t resolve the structural concerns above.

Hive5 FAQ

Is Hive5 legit?

Hive5 is a real company. It’s run by Hive5 marketplace d.o.o. in Zagreb, owned by Lithuania’s Hive Finance Group, and the group’s 2024 accounts were audited. By its own figures, it has paid investors €5.9M in interest over four years. Legit as a business, though, doesn’t make it a platform I’d trust with my savings, for the reasons above.

Is Hive5 safe to invest in?

I don’t consider it safe. There’s no financial license, no investor protection scheme, and the buyback guarantee depends on lenders owned by the same group as the platform. A group-wide problem would hit the loans and the guarantee at the same time.

Is Hive5 a scam?

I haven’t seen evidence that it’s a scam, and I haven’t found a formal warning from any regulator. What I have seen is a pattern that preceded past P2P collapses: insider-owned lenders, paid Trustpilot reviews, legal pressure on critics, and a founder network linked to Credon, which froze investor money in 2023.

Is Hive5 regulated?

No. Hive5 states that it doesn’t operate under a financial services license, and it isn’t licensed as a crowdfunding platform under EU rules.

Bottom Line

Hive5 isn’t a confirmed scam. Withdrawals are still processing, the corporate entities exist on paper, and I haven’t found a formal warning from any regulator.

But “not yet a confirmed scam” is a low bar. The combination of red flags is enough for me to step away. The founder network’s ties to a P2P platform that froze investor funds. The insider-owned loan books. The pattern of pushing back on critics. Each one alone would warrant caution. Together they’re enough.

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