Maclear Review 2025
- Written by
- Just P2P
- •
- Updated January 12, 2025
Maclear AG is a Swiss peer-to-business (P2B) lending platform that specializes in funding projects from small and medium-sized enterprises. Under the supervision of the PolyReg General Self-Regulatory Organisation in Zurich, the platform offers investors the opportunity to invest in collateral-backed business loans.
Though launched in 2023, Maclear stands out for the quality and technical sophistication of its platform. Besides demonstrating the professionalism and high standards of its management team, their platform sets new benchmarks in the P2B lending space.
Now, let’s dive into this detailed Maclear AG review.
Table des matières
What is Maclear ?
Maclear is a peer-to-business lending platform operating from Switzerland that connects investors with companies located in Europe. Starting from €50, the funds raised are used to lend money to these companies needing capital to invest in production capacity, technical equipment or manpower in order to scale their revenue and profits.
The company “Maclear AG”
Between 2010 and 2020, Maclear AG was developing GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) software solutions and then was acquired by the current owners to become a peer-to-business lending platform.
They initially thought the software resources of the company would be an asset to implement a platform but eventually built their own IT product between 2020 and 2022.
Then, Maclear AG started its P2B lending activity in 2023 and is now located in Wallisellen, Switzerland and registered under the UID number CHE-115.674.165. The base capital of the company is 217,360 CHF (€226 K), in line with the amounts observed in the P2P industry.
Maclear AG is regulated in Switzerland by a Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO), under supervision of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), as a financial intermediary of the non-banking sector. As such, they align with European crowdfunding rules (ECSP) and cannot finance projects larger than 5 M€.
According to the Swiss regulatory framework, Maclear AG can serve as collateral and collection agent for European investors, besides the role of payment processing agent (membership confirmation).
Maclear founders
Maclear AG was founded by two Estonian professionals in the fields of entrepreneurship, banking and investment who noticed the difficulties and complications encountered by small business companies in obtaining traditional bank financing :
Denis Ustjev is an advisory and consultancy professional with several years of experience in business consulting and capital investment. He is the man behind the idea of Maclear and owns 50% of the shares of the company alongside his friend and associate.
Aleksandr Nikitin is an expert in foreign trade, industrial projects and investments with confirmed skills in financial strategy, business analysis and banking. He also owns as an individual 50% of the shares as indicated in the share register.
Denis Ustjev
Aleksandr Nikitin
The management team
In addition to being co-founder, Denis Ustjev is also CEO of Maclear AG. He obtained a Master of Business Administration in 2008 and has worked as Investment Planner and Financial Advisor successively for Unibank and TCF Financial Corporation.
Apart from the general management, Denis takes care of the company’s compliance with regulatory requirements, follows IT developments of the platform and coordinates with service providers (banks, payment systems, custody, verification, etc.).
The second co-founder, Aleksandr Nikitin, is the CFO of the company. After an MBA in Corporate Management and Economics obtained in 2010, he joined Zimmer International L.P. as Head of Business Development and developed skills in banking and financial modelling.
Aleksandr is in charge of the accounting and the financial reporting, but he also actively participates in the project selection and monitoring, and is simultaneously responsible for risk assessment implementation within the company.
Alexej Martin is the Director in charge of legal matters in connection with banking and financial market law, including capital and licence requirements. He covers KYC procedures, due diligence, pre-compliance checks and onboarding procedures for new clients.
Alexej is a lawyer holding simultaneously a Relationship Manager position at MBaer Merchant Bank AG in Zürich. He is a graduate of the University of Bielefeld (Legal Studies), the University of Münster (Asset Management) and the University of Liechtenstein (Bank and Financial Market Law).
Igor Bannikov, as Chief Risk Officer, is in charge of AML policy and ensures the compliance of the projects listed with industry standards. He monitors their proper verification and full assessment through due diligence reports and risk scoring prepared by the team.
Alexej Martin
Igor Bannikov
Maclear statistics in 2025
Here are some statistics for the current year:
- Total funds invested : 8.93 M€
- Total interests paid to investors : 564,566 €
- Average annual return : 14.40%
- Number of investors : +3,500
- Average portfolio per investor : ~5 K€
Although still in early stages, the platform shows promising metrics with 8.93M€ funded and over 3,500 investors. The rapid growth in both funding volume and investor numbers is noteworthy, with an average portfolio per investor (1,225€) that is twice that of Swaper.
How does Maclear work ?
Maclear is a P2B marketplace where small businesses from various sectors offer individual and corporate investors the opportunity to fund their development projects. The investments benefit from guarantees and they are backed with collateral. In return, the companies reimburse the capital and pay interests according to a predefined schedule.
Maclear is a P2B marketplace
Maclear AG is a peer-to-business (P2B) lending platform specialised in small business financing (production, retail, services). The platform connects investors with companies, mainly SMEs, looking for funding to develop their in-house projects.
On one hand, there are companies that need additional capital to fund their growth through these industrial or business development projects. Their objective is to get additional funding capacity, raise their revenues and reimburse their loan with interest.
On the other hand, there are investors (individuals or companies) are looking for financial opportunities to invest their capital. They are ready to lend their money to these businesses in exchange for interest on the capital invested according to a payment schedule.
The reason why these companies in the manufacturing, services and retail sectors are turning to P2B lending platforms is that the excessive bureaucracy of banks is making it increasingly difficult and time-consuming to obtain loans, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
These companies will therefore turn to private investors for a temporary injection of capital, and submit an application which will be pre-selected by the P2B platform. In particular, they must explain the nature of the project, describe its business plan and prove its profitability.
Maclear AG therefore acts as the intermediary body between the borrowing companies and the investors willing to invest in their projects. The platform performs valuation and verification processes before listing any project and is also assigned the role of payment processing agent.
It should also be noted that, in line with the contractual framework, the platform serves as collateral agent securing the loans issued to the companies and as payment processing agent to transfer reimbursements.
Their role is to enforce investors’ rights against the collateral (pledge, guarantee, etc.) in the event of the borrower’s default.
In return, these companies pay a commission to Maclear based on the funding obtained for their project. The platform also charges for various consulting services they provide, such as financial modelling, business plans preparation, business valuation, and risk assessment.
Chronology of a P2B investment
On Maclear AG, the minimum amount that can be invested in a project is 50€, generally for a period of 12 months (though some projects have shorter durations). For each project, investors receive two contractual documents: a claim assignment agreement and a repayment schedule.
Most of the projects are funded by bullet loans with interest rates ranging from 13.5% to 15.8%. This means the borrower pays interest monthly while the principal amount is repaid in full when the loan matures.
For each project a “minimum target” is specified, meaning that if this amount is not reached, all reserved funds are credited back to investors. A “maximum target” is also indicated which stops the fundraising when altogether the total investments reach this amount.
The projects are generally listed on the platform for 1 to 2 months, which is sufficient in most cases. Borrowers can extend the campaign duration at their discretion if the funds have not been raised during the initial fundraising period.
Once the fundraising campaign is successful, interest payments are made every 30 days during the contractual period. Early repayment is possible, but borrowers must pay both the principal and interest accrued during the shortened period (with a minimum of 3 months).
On the other hand, if the borrower defaults on monthly interest payments for more than 3 days, Maclear will continue paying out interest payments from their provision fund until the borrower resumes interest payments according to the repayment schedule.
Investing on Maclear
Who can invest on Maclear ?
To invest on Maclear AG, you just need to be at least 18 years old and be resident from the European Economic Area (EEA). Concerning the bank account, there is no particular condition and no restriction applies in this respect except to open it in the investor’s name.
It is also possible to invest through a company account provided that the person opening the account provides additional documents : company representatives, their right to represent the company, a commercial register extract, etc.
According to their latest statistics, investors on the platform mainly come from the following countries :
Spain 40%
Germany 19%- 🇨🇭 Switzerland 10%
- 🇫🇷 France 10%
- 🇵🇹 Portugal 6%
- 🇬🇷 Greece 4%
- 🇮🇹 Italy 3.5%
- 🇪🇺 Other EU countries 7.5%
The platform is currently available in four languages (English, German, French, and Spanish), effectively servicing the main European markets and demonstrating Maclear’s commitment to broad accessibility across the continent.
What do we invest in ?
The P2B platform Maclear offers the chance to invest in loans issued to small and medium size companies demonstrating sustainable business development and which are capable of generating stable revenues in the short and medium term.
The loan applications are meant to fund development projects from companies in traditional business sectors (production, manufacturing, retail, etc.) that can demonstrate sustainable performance.
In addition to targeting growing companies which minimizes the risk related to potential borrower default, the loan is entirely covered by collateral provided by the companies (similarly to Debitum). The collateral is mainly company tangible assets like machinery, manufacturing equipment, tools, instruments, etc.
Where do we invest ?
The founders strategically chose to start with business projects from Estonia, their home country. Investing in Estonia is interesting because, apart from Lendermarket, there are relatively few platforms offering business investments in this country.
Maclear now lists projects from Bulgaria, a stable EU country driven by private consumption and investments. With its attractive tax system and strategic geographical position between Asia and the Middle East, Bulgaria offers interesting opportunities.
Finally, the platform is diversifying geographically by offering projects from companies located in Latvia and Finland. Later on, their objective is to offer business projects from other EU countries such as Poland, Switzerland and Austria.
Registration process
To register as an investor takes a few minutes thanks to online identity verification provided by SumSub KYC/AML service. The process requires a passport or an ID card, a valid email address, and also a smartphone or a computer for photo (sometimes video) verification.
Only after completing the anti-money laundering procedures are investors able to transfer funds to their account. The platform does not set any minimum or maximum amounts for transfers.
Transfers generally take 1-3 business days, though they can be faster with international online banks. Neither these online banks nor Maclear AG charge any fees for euro deposits and withdrawals.
As a new platform, Maclear AG offers particularly attractive registration and investing conditions for a limited period of time. In addition to the standard annual interest rates on each project, the platform provides the following special bonuses :
- 1.5% cash-back Bonus for 90 days only for investors going through our referral link (no referral code needed).
Additional interest rate between +1% and +3% on top of the standard annual return on investment(not active).Fixed amount of €30 for each €500 invested, meaning €60 for €1,000 invested, €90 for €1,500 invested, etc(no active campaign).
The founders are prioritizing platform growth over immediate profitability, focusing on delivering maximum value to early investors to build trust and develop their P2B platform.
Moreover, the platform offers a loyalty program : this is an additional interest rate on top of the standard annual return on investment, that can be combined with all other bonuses described above.
There are 4 loyalty bonus levels:
- Beta : +0.5% over 5,000 € invested
- Beta Plus : +1% over 15,000 € invested
- Alpha : +1.5% over 40,000 € invested
- Alpha Plus : +2% over 75,000 € invested
How to invest on Maclear ?
Manual investment only
The P2B platform Maclear AG only offers manual investment into the projects even though the auto-invest feature should be made available within the next few months, as it is one the priorities of the management team.
But in the case of business investments and considering their duration, generally 12 months, manual investment is the best option.
To invest on Maclear, investors should refer to each project’s information, where the platform gives more details about the borrowing company, the project idea, the business plan and financial model, the market, and their key financials, as well as the collateral and guarantees they propose.
Criteria to select to invest
In addition, the platform lists a number of details about the investments that should be taken into account by investors in deciding whether they want to invest or not :
- Minimum target: amount to validate the investment
- Maximum target: amount the borrower needs
- Loan period: contractual duration of the loan
- Interest rate: annual return on investment
- Funded: amount already funded by investors
- Available: amount available for other investors
- Investors: people who have already invested
- Project type: retail, manufacturing, etc.
- Location: country in which the project is located
- Interest payments: frequency of interest payments
- Principal repayments: method of capital repayment
Investors can calculate their potential returns by entering their desired investment amount on the left side of the maint page of each project and clicking ‘Calculate your profit’. This will display a detailed payment schedule.
Maclear offers a secondary market
Their secondary market provides investors with an early exit option for their investments. While sellers face a 2.5% transaction fee (only charged if the sale succeeds within 14 days), buyers can purchase without fees, and investments can be listed at original price or at a discount up to 50%.
All secondary market investments maintain the same binding conditions as primary market investments. While investors can sell their claims immediately after the initial funding process, there is a 30-day holding period after purchasing from the secondary market before reselling is allowed.
Is it safe to invest on Maclear AG ?
Maclear AG is a platform regulated by Swiss financial authorities offering clear risk management processes to assess companies and their projects. Moreover, as collateral agent, the platform offers a guarantee scheme based on collateral together with a provision fund to protect investors’ interests in case borrowing projects experience difficulties.
Pros to investing on Maclear
Regulated platform
As a member of PolyReg SRO, Maclear AG is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) as financial intermediary of the non-banking sector. They are subject to specific regulations to protect the interests of investors (disclosure requirements, due diligence processes, risk management practices).
They also have to ensure transparency in their operations thanks to a yearly financial audit (performed by BlueAUDIT GmbH), and an AML/AMLA audit (performed by Pfister Treuhand AG as one of the audit companies approved by PolyReg).
But at any time PolyReg can ask for an external audit as well, like they did in April 2023, assigning Grant Thornton. Maclear AG successfully passed the examination and makes available to all potential investors their Grant Thornton AML Audit report.
Risk Scoring Model
For each project, Maclear conducts a multi-stage risk-based selection process comprising legal documentation review (statutory documents, certificates of beneficiaries, extracts from an independent credit bureau), background checks, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) assessment, and onboarding with Know Your Customer (KYC) / Business (KYB) standards.
Based on that assessment incorporating practices from the banking sector, Maclear is able to evaluate the company’s future financial performance and its capacity to service loans, significantly reducing any default risk.
Then, based on the risk assessment and score given to the project, they decide together with the borrower the potential loan target amount to be raised. They also agree on the collateral and guarantees to be provided to secure the loan and sign an IPAC (Investment Project Acceptance and Confirmation Agreement).
Collateral as guarantee
The guarantee scheme implemented by Maclear AG is based on collateral provided by the borrowers to back up their business loan and to guarantee the fulfilment of their financial obligations : the pledge of assets, production equipment and machinery.
If a borrower fails to meet their contractual obligations, Maclear AG acts as a collateral agent on behalf of the investors to enforce collection and sale of pledges and additional guarantees.
In such a model, similar to Crowdpear, the platform carries out a plan of actions and measures and collects all necessary funds through the realisation of all collateral to cover the remaining principal of all participating investors as well as the outstanding amount of interest.
Maclear Provision Fund
In addition to the collateral scheme implemented for each business loan listed, Maclear offers another guarantee tool called the Provision Fund. The fund is built from 2% of Maclear’s commission on all successfully funded projects and all commissions from secondary market transactions.
The objective of the Provision Fund is to provide additional security to investors in case borrowing projects experience temporary difficulties in repayments, according to their schedule.
The Provision Fund is a guarantee for investors to receive their interest payments on time as well as the reimbursement of their principal amount. As collateral agent, the platform guarantees the schedule of payments to investors and may use the Provision Fund as a buffer if necessary.
Cons to investing on Maclear
A new P2P platform
To date, Maclear has not yet published its 2023 annual report even though 2024 is behind us. This is the priority area where the platform needs to move forward in order to provide a clear picture of its financial situation, even if it was the first year of its crowdlending platform operations.
Moreover, the management team has extensive experience in capital investment and financial strategy. They have demonstrated a robust approach to protect investors’ capital.
Indeed, Maclear provides strong guarantees in the event of default by a borrower. But this system of guarantees relies on the platform itself, which must be financially sound to fulfil its role as an intermediary. Considering Maclear is not yet profitable, their ability to break even in the medium term is therefore essential.
Need for more transparency
To date, Maclear has not published any annual report yet which is understable considering their team started their operational activities in 2023. Nevertheless, we may expect from the platform quarterly statements about their financial situation and development roadmap.
Maclear clearly pursues thorough research on the projects and companies they list on their platform, but more information about their own situation would be welcome.
More transparency would also be welcome on the team composition of their team considering that some people are presented in their about section but they don’t seem to be part of the staff (more like partners) whereas the day-to-day staff investors are in contact with are not presented at all.
No Statistics
Whereas some P2P lending platforms update their statistics every day (like Esketit or PeerBerry), too many of them still struggle to publish theirs on a monthly basis. Others are not even able to show any statistics page on their website, and Maclear is one of them.
Any investment platform should be able to display their own figures on a regular basis to show investors how they keep good track of their funds.
P2P Statistics matter to investors, and platforms should make key metrics readily available such as the average annual investment return, total amount invested since inception, number of investors, and total interest paid.
Opinion on Maclear
Maclear offers very attractive returns on investments that are secured by a wide range of strong collateral and guarantees. On top of that, as a collateral agent, the platform can legally enforce collection and sale of pledges and guarantees, on behalf of all the investors.
In addition, the platform offers a strong risk assessment policy (dedicated risk and AML officers, financial scoring process, visits on site). Moreover, a Provision Fund based on successful projects provides an additional guarantee for investors to receive their payments.
Yet, all these guarantee schemes rely on Maclear, which is still in an early stage of development and needs to establish a proven track record. While the legal entity Maclear was established years ago, the P2B lending activity only started recently and is still building market trust.
But on that, it is worth noting that Maclear is duly regulated and monitored by Swiss authorities through regular financial and AML audits performed by renowned companies. Moreover, the management team has a proven experience in capital investment and financial strategy.
The management team committed to publish their first activity report in 2024, but nothing has been produced so far that could demonstrate Maclear’s ability to have a sustainable business model. In the meantime, the platform is expanding thanks to high returns and interesting cash-back campaigns.
Actually, Maclear AG offers among the highest interest rates together with a loyalty program and cash-back upon registration. The platform has chosen to prioritize its growth in this market in terms of number of investors and projects, over immediate short-term profitability.
One criticism that can be made about Maclear is the lack of liquidity, since projects generally last 12 months. However, this criticism overlooks the nature of business project financing, which requires a long-term perspective. Additionally, Maclear offers investors the ability to trade on the secondary market.
In terms of diversification, Maclear now offers solid geographical diversity, albeit with a significant concentration in Bulgaria. The platform also demonstrates strong sector diversification, which is crucial for mitigating risk levels and avoiding overexposure to any particular industry.
The main challenge for Maclear is now to demonstrate that their professional team will be able to turn this P2B platform into one of the fintech-based business lending leaders. Their sophisticated website design already demonstrates high professional standards, but operational excellence will be key to achieving market leadership.
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About the Author
Silvère is an economist and IT engineer with numerous years of experience in business management, FinTech investment and digital marketing. He invests mainly in crowdlending especially P2P lending, P2B lending, and real estate crowdfunding.
