On May 5, 2026, Bafin ruled that Ventus Energy’s business constitutes unauthorized deposit-taking under the German Banking Act and ordered immediate repayment. Twenty days later, Ventus told its lenders that Paysera, its payment processor, had “unilaterally restricted outgoing payments from our accounts.” The restrictions extend to “operative bank accounts related to our heat and electricity business activities” and “several other group companies.” All payouts are delayed.
Sources: https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/EN/Verbrauchermitteilung/unerlaubte/2026/meldung_2026_05_18_ventus_energy_group_en.html; https://t.me/die_p2p_macher_de/14077
In December 2025, I published an investigation into Ventus Energy documenting self-dealing, undisclosed fees, and document manipulation. Since then, Ventus’s outstanding balance has grown from EUR 65.8 million to more than EUR 94 million.
Source: https://ventus.energy/en/statistics
Germany is widely understood to be Ventus’s largest market. Ventus says it received the order on May 12. The next morning, it emailed lenders about “constructive dialogue with relevant regulatory stakeholders in Germany.” German investors would be unable to invest “temporarily.” No mention of a cease-and-desist. Investors learned what had actually happened when Bafin published the order on its website on May 18.
Sources: https://t.me/die_p2p_macher_de/13380; https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/17067652
What Happens Next?
Marcel Seifert, a banking and capital markets lawyer at Brüllmann Rechtsanwälte in Stuttgart, describes the worst case scenario for investors:
It may not come to that. But here’s where things stand:
Bafin ordered immediate repayment. Ventus suggested a payment plan. Those are not the same thing.
Ventus says it will shift operations to different bank accounts to resume payouts. Any new payment processor or bank would be reading the same Bafin publication.
Even if Ventus finds a new payment processor, there are structural problems:
Available funds. My prior article documented undisclosed fees, concerns about valuations, and where investor money actually went. The assets backing those obligations have not performed to forecast.
Source: https://www.karsten.me/money/ventus-energy-investigation/
Equal footing. All investors, German and non-German, hold the same class of loan agreements. Germany is the dominant market, but the remainder is spread across multiple countries. It is unclear how Ventus can give preferential treatment to German investors without violating its duties towards everyone else.
Interest payments. Bafin ordered Ventus to cease unauthorized deposit-taking. Continuing to pay interest on those positions is continuing to operate the business. It’s unclear how Ventus services German investors without violating the order it just received.
Ventus has proposed “a transition to updated loan terms.” I assume that means qualified subordination clauses (qualifizierte Nachrangklauseln) that would make repayment conditional and might take the structure outside Bafin’s deposit-taking definition. Signing could replace investors’ current claims (the ones Bafin just made immediately repayable) with a new instrument.
Source: https://t.me/beyondp2p_discussion/9542
German courts have not been kind to these clauses. Seifert has litigated them directly. His firm won a case at Landgericht Hanau (1 O 418/25) that declared a subordination clause void for lack of transparency under §307 BGB. When the clause is voided, the loan reverts to an unconditionally repayable claim, which is the deposit-taking definition Bafin used against Ventus. The Kammergericht Berlin (4 U 105/24) has separately held that platforms can be liable for damages if they fail to adequately disclose such risks.
Sources: https://bruellmann.de/ventus-energy-group-oue-bafin-stoppt-einlagengeschaeft; https://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/307.html
So what if German investors don’t get their money back? Is this multi-jurisdiction setup guaranteed to be bound up in endless court battles with no one but the lawyers winning?
Not quite.
Why It May Not Stay Civil
Bafin didn’t just issue an administrative ruling and say “contracts are invalid.” Bafin said Ventus is conducting unauthorized banking business. Under §54(1) KWG, conducting banking business without authorization can constitute a criminal offense. Up to five years in prison for intentional violations. Up to three for negligent ones.
Seifert confirmed the mechanism:
If a criminal investigation accompanies investors’ civil claims, the options for cross-border enforcement increase significantly. European Investigation Orders (Directive 2014/41/EU) and European Arrest Warrants (Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA) are available in cross-border criminal cases. The JuicyFields cannabis investment fraud case (EUR 645 million, 186,000 investors, 11 countries) produced 9 arrests and 38 property searches in a single Eurojust-coordinated action day. On cross-border prosecution, Seifert: “Since the firm was also active here [in Germany], I believe investigations are possible.”
For criminal proceedings to begin, Bafin would refer the case to the public prosecutor’s office. So could any affected investor (or anyone else, really). That doesn’t guarantee prosecution. But with EUR 94 million at stake and a formal Bafin assessment on the table, my assumption is that they will.
What Ventus Had to Say
On May 20, I emailed Ventus Energy CEO Henrijs Jansons about the repayment timeline and whether Ventus intends to appeal. He did not answer those questions. Instead:
No example of selective reporting was provided.
No calculation was identified. No assumption was specified. No manipulation was described. This from the same CEO who was caught editing a third-party property valuation to replace “Crowdestor” with “Ventus Energy OU” and left the edit history in the PDF.
A quick reminder of what that “good faith engagement” looked like: In their ten-point rebuttal, Ventus specifically claimed their COBALT legal opinion and regulator confirmation were “ignored in the article.” The original article quoted both, verbatim. Their “good faith engagement” hallucinated the absence of facts.
No name was given. No article was identified. No source was provided.
This from a company that presented a legal review summary as an “independent audit” to 5,000 investors. If you can’t correctly label the documents you commission, you are not in a position to verify much of anything.
Let me help you verify something: as previously confirmed, I’m the guy who filed the Bafin complaint that most likely resulted in the order. No one asked me to and no one paid me. And I’m still waiting to hear what Ventus’s repayment timeline is.
And for anyone wanting to check if Henrijs really wrote this, as he requested, here’s the actual email exchange.
It’s Not Just Ventus
Bafin’s order targets Ventus. But the structure it classified as unauthorized deposit-taking is not unique to Ventus.
Ventus founder Jānis Timma and CEO Henrijs Jansons jointly own White Label Solution (WLS), a company that provides the same platform technology to other operators. Toms Ābele is its CEO. Asterra Estate, Devon, and Triple Dragon Funding all run on WLS infrastructure, potentially with the same loan agreement templates and structural setup. For Devon, the case seems clear. In the Devon Lenders Official Chat on Telegram, Ābele confirmed it himself:
“The regulation and legal framework are the same as with Ventus Energy platform.” From the platform’s own representative.
Bafin warned the organizer of INVEST Stuttgart, Germany’s largest retail investor trade fair, directly. Yannik Elsäßer, head of event communications at Messe Stuttgart: “Bafin had informed us before INVEST 2026 that it was conducting financial supervisory investigations against the company Ventus Energy Group OÜ. After receiving this information, we acted immediately and ended the company’s participation in INVEST 2026.”
Then Ventus’s CEO and staff appeared at the same event under different names: Triple Dragon Funding and Rocket BTC, at the same booth location. Elsäßer: “Following consultation with Bafin, we had no grounds to exclude the two companies Triple Dragon Funding and Rocket BTC from INVEST 2026.” Bafin flagged Ventus but did not flag the other entities at the same booth. That most likely speaks to the fact that prior to Triple Dragon Funding attending the fair, Bafin wasn’t aware of the operation. It is reasonable to assume this has changed, given Bafin itself was present at that fair.
It doesn’t end with the White Label Solution platforms.
In October 2025, Latvijas Banka published a position stating that credit-claim trading on web platforms falls outside the scope of the European Crowdfunding Service Provider regulation and requires either an investment brokerage firm or credit institution license. The Bank named 15 platforms as operating illegally. Its warning list, updated March 2026, includes Ventus alongside Crowdestor, Income, IUVO, Loanch, Lonvest, Robocash, Scramble, Swaper, and Triple Dragon Funding, among others.
This is not the same legal classification as Bafin’s deposit-taking finding, but the direction is the same: regulators are no longer willing to treat these platforms as operating in a licensing vacuum.
So What About Everyone Else?
Bafin’s finding against Ventus rests on a specific classification: the platform accepted unconditionally repayable funds from the public through loan agreements. Investors lent money to Ventus. Ventus owed it back. That’s deposit-taking under §1(1) KWG, and Ventus had no license to do it.
The question for the rest of the market is whether their structures work the same way.
I contacted several platforms and asked whether Bafin’s unauthorized deposit-taking classification could apply to them. The responses fell into two categories.
The first argues jurisdiction. PeerBerry‘s CMO Rita Simanavičiūtė: “PeerBerry is registered in Croatia and operates under local authority supervision.” On German investors: “We do not advertise our services via paid ads in Germany.” On the general question: “Usually, in a democratic world, if people find some services themselves that they want to use, they simply do it.” Bafin does not appear to share this interpretation of European financial services law.
The second argues structure. Income Marketplace CEO Lavrenti Tsudakov: “Investors acquire assigned receivables originated by licensed lending companies; they do not lend to Income, and Income is not the debtor on the claim.” Bondora‘s Mayumi Tsuruyama and Esketit‘s CMO Krista Kārkliņa make the same argument: investors buy claims against third-party borrowers, not deposits with the platform. If that’s genuine, Bafin’s reasoning doesn’t apply: the platform is not the debtor.
But the defense has limits. Bondora’s Go & Grow works like this: you put money in. Bondora spreads it across hundreds of thousands of consumer loans. Returns accrue daily at up to 6% per year. You withdraw any time for EUR 1. You never see, choose, or manage an individual loan. Bondora says you legally own the underlying claims, not a deposit. From the investor’s side, it works like a savings account: money in, daily interest, money out on demand.
Monefit‘s SmartSaver, part of Creditstar Group, offers a similar product. Neither Monefit nor Creditstar responded to a request for comment.
Bafin classified Ventus as unauthorized deposit-taking because investors handed over money they could get back. Whether a product that works the same way but calls itself a claim assignment would survive the same test is a question several platforms are now asking their lawyers.
For Ventus’s 6,473 investors, the question is settled: Bafin ordered repayment. The numbers elsewhere are larger. Go & Grow alone holds EUR 567 million. That’s six times what Ventus raised.
Source: https://bondora.com/en/blog/dive-into-bondora-group-2024-financial-report/
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