The long announced and several times postponed Mintos Notes product will finally launch on May 25th, Mintos* said yesterday. The notes are financial instruments and issued under the new investment firm license Mintos received last year. For each loan originator there will be a seperate prospectus (see example). Mintos mentions safeguarding of investor funds and notes under MIFID II requirements and increased transparency as investor benefits.

Until 30 June, investors can buy and sell investments via claims on the Secondary Market as usual. Then, from 1 July onwards, investors will be able to buy and sell Notes only, as a result of regulatory requirements.

The transition will mean two key changes for investors:

• As the claims cannot be traded from July 1st onwards on the secondary market, investors will have to hold any claims in their portfolio to maturity
• Mintos is required to deduct withholding tax depending on the investors country of tax residency and applicable double taxation treaties

My take

The transition will mean a major change for the marketplace that could either stiffle or empower Mintos growth. I expect that many investors will shy away from investing in very long term claims on the primary market in the remaining 7 weeks. Also buyer demand on the secondary market will likely decrease for the claims on long term loans. Potentially this will lead to offers with rising discounts before the trading of claims ends on June 30th.

There is some hesitation voiced among investors regarding the upcoming notes due to the withholding tax and surronding paperwork to claim possible reliefs and reductions (Mintos has announced that it will publish more information on the details). Mintos might try to offer some incentives in order for investors to take the leap and embrace the new product. I also imagine that Mintos will step up investor marketing again, once the notes product has launched. Already Mintos is taking a lot of effort to communicate and explain the coming changes via blog articles and newsletters.

This disruption might also increase the trend of loan originators setting up their own, unregulated investor marketplaces in other jurisdictions than Latvia.