Fintech Europe

  At the beginning of the year no one suspected that in just a few months, the whole world will face the same problem, nevertheless of nationality, race, or religion.  At one moment, we are celebrating New Year’s Eve, flying back home to visit relatives, and looking forward to new beginnings. In the next one, we are locked out, travel plans are put on hold, and masks are a commonality. Even though the economy took a hit, it is logical to assume that some industries will benefit from the current situation and expand their businesses. Some of those industries are e-commerce, online retailers, and banks. It is due to the belief that paper money is “dirty” and helps spread the virus, and social distancing measures introduced in virtually every country. This article will explore how did the global pandemic affects fintech businesses and what can we expect in the future for them.   Before the deep dive, it would be beneficial to take another look at how the household consum...

  Apple has purchased Canadian company Mobeewave , which will allow it to create mobile pay hubs out of iPhones, Bloomberg reported. Before we embark on the journey of understanding what the Mobeewave acquisition represents for Apple, let’s take a brief overview of Apple as a company, what are their core businesses, what are they doing today, what acquisitions they made in the past and what can we expect for future ones. Moreover, we will introduce shifts in consumers’ behavior for a better understanding of underlying implications.   Apple was founded in April 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne with Wayne selling his shares back within 12 days period. The first commercial product for the company was the computer. Today their products include hardware, software, and services, some of the most popular ones are: - Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch for hardware, - macOS, iOS for software and - iTunes, Shazam, Apple Store, Genius Bar, and Apple Pay as repres...

Fintech: COVID-19 Challenges and Opportunities As the world fights itself out of the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, fintech companies are frustrated by several fronts. Most firms struggle to secure funding investments, especially startups since investors shift their focus on companies with defined business models. Furthermore, the current interest rates status has deteriorated following the economic shutdown. Consequently, many industries have changed their assumptions as of the larger economy shifts from response to recovery strategies. This forces firms to embrace new opportunities as the digital financial services and e-commerce take tremendous growth. While there is uncertainty in fintech's future, we still hope for new, innovative, and transformative solutions to take the front line. Analysis of the Challenges Faced By Fintech Firms Well, while much attention is directed on the crisis, a considerable impact of it is also experienced in fintech market place...

There are thousands of fintechs evolving every year on financial industry. What are the most interesting fintech companies to follow in 2021? I'm introducing the ones that requires closer look in my blog. These are the 10 companies across the Europe that has caught the attention for this year: Finland Sortter Ferratum France Payfit Germany Check24 Deposit Solutions Sweden Northmill Klarna Tink UK Transferwise

TransferWise TransferWise is a British online money transfer service, and it is based in London. It was founded in 2010, by Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus. Their vision was to make international money transfers cheap, fair, and simple. Some of the largest investors in the world backed their idea, including IA Ventures, Index Ventures, Seedcamp, Kima Ventures, Virgin Group Sir Richard Branson, and PayPal’s founder, Max Levchin. Over the years the company has grown significantly, opening 13 offices, with more than 1,300 employees, across 4 continents. Over 6 million customers from different countries trust them to move more than 5 billion dollars every month. The company states that its services are saving $4 million in bank fees every day. The overall concept is to use two local transfers instead of one international transaction. Customers can avoid costly international payments that way. This is how TransferWise application looks like Let’s say you a...

Deposit Solutions Deposit Solutions runs a public banking platform that connects banks and other financial services firms in the deposit business. Banks seeking financing can operate deposits via the platform without having to build and operate their retail infrastructure. Banks and other platforms that interact with savers can offer attractive third-party deposit products while maintaining the relationship with the customer. And savers can choose from a wider selection of savings products, without the hassle of opening multiple accounts. With the solution, every participating party is subjected to winning. Deposit Solutions, in recent times, have crossed the 10-billion-euro mark placed through its platform and announces in the process the extension of its activities in the United States and other parts of Europe. With the open banking system, the financial institutions put the customer at the center of their activities. This may also include offering third-party pr...

Check24 Check24 online portal started in August 1999, as a comparison portal for car insurance. It was first called Einsurance Agency AG. In the beginning, it had only 20 employees. It continued to grow in 2008, merging the insurance comparison portal with the portals for finance, credit, electricity and gas prices comparison. The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany. Today, it employs almost 1400 employees. Since going online, Check24 has served more than 15 million consumers on the search for the best prices in the market. The motto of the company is "Here, I check everything". Check24 compares almost anything for consumers Check24 is a German online comparison portal. As the leading comparison provider in the German market, it enables private customers an opportunity to compare prices for almost anything. You can compare insurances, credits, electricity and gas, flights, travel arrangements, and many more. Also, a large number of shopping categor...

Sortter Sortter is a FinTech company providing online loan comparison. The mission of this portal is to provide neutral, unbiased loan comparisons from different providers. The company even offers a guarantee for the lowest interest rates. If you find a lower interest rate - they will cover the difference for you! Sortter operates in the Finnish market, comparing different loan providers. The procedure is very simple. The customer submits a free application and receives the best loan offers. Only a loan amount and loan maturity are needed in order to receive the best loan deals in the market. The most common uses for loans compared through Sortter are home renewals, travel arrangements, car purchases/repairs and small loans combining. Once a consumer receives the best loan offers and makes the decision, they can apply for a loan directly through Sortter. This way, they ensure safety and data security. Also, customers are sure that they're getting the best loan deals i...

Northmill Northmill is a technology bank, which was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in the year 2006. Their main goal is to simplify and help people manage their finances, with the bonus of saving their time and energy. Since its inception, in addition to their main office in Sweden, Northmill has successfully managed to establish themselves in Katowice, which is located in Poland, as well as in Helsinki, Finland. The company employs over 120 employees, who are in turn servicing roughly 200,000 satisfied customers. Northmill is clearly about to challenge traditional banks Northmill believes that technology can be used in our daily life to make our work as seamless and efficient as possible. Due to this belief, the talented IT technicians at Northmill have used automation at every step of the way, adding efficiency to their work tremendously. This thinking process has made it possible for the think tanks at Northmill headquarters to come up with tailor-made products for th...

PayFit PayFit is an integrated payroll and HR management software. The company was founded in Paris, France in 2016, where the headquarters are also located. Following its 2016 launch, PayFit has expanded its services to other countries in Europe, such as Spain and Germany in 2018, and the United Kingdom in 2019. As a result, PayFit has a total of 5 offices in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, and London. As of November 2019, PayFit employs over 400 people, who work together to offer top-notch services. On top of that, the company boasts an impressive number of over 4000 satisfied clients, with the numbers growing day by day. PayFit continues to spread its influence across Europe with its user-friendly software. The company aims to improve the handling of human resources for European companies. PayFit manages to transcend others due to the high standards they maintain. Additionally, their main goal is to make customers happy, as well as build the best human resource management so...

Ferratum Ferratum was founded by Jorma Jokela in May 2005, and it is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. This is not the first endeavor for Mr. Jokela, as he founded another finance-related enterprise, Jokela Capital Oy, in 1998 and acted as a CEO till 2000, after which he sold the business in 2004. Moreover, Ferratum is one of the FinTech pioneers and was one of the first to be enlisted at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on February 6th, 2015. Currently, Ferratum operates as a big data-based global finance platform for real-time scoring, lending, and banking services. Their proclaimed goal is to spearhead the FinTech revolution and deliver simple, easy-to-use customer interface that would be available 24/7 and accessible online. Furthermore, the vision stands as a desire for becoming a “most valued financial platform”. Interestingly, the vision incorporates all the stakeholders, meaning that they do not prioritize any, as instead, they are envisioning a balanced goal for th...

Klarna Klarna Bank AB, more commonly known as just Klarna, is a Swedish company that provides online financial services. It was founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden. Its founders Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth, and Victor Jacobsson participated in the Stockholm School of Economics entrepreneurship award in 2005 with their idea on how to provide a safe and simple online shopping payment method. Although their vision was not very well understood in the competition, that hasn’t stopped them from trying to bring it to life. Klarna was founded that same year. Klarna office (source glassdoor.com ) After five years of successful business in Sweden and two rounds of investments, the company expanded to Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark, in 2010. In 2011, Klarna acquired Analyzd, an Israeli company that specializes in risk management and online payments. In the following years, Klarna continued to grow and expand to new markets – Austria in 2012...

Tink Tink.com is a European open-banking platform. Founded in 2012, the company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Tink operates in the area of open banking. This means that the platform connects different banks and financial service providers. Banks across Europe are connected through a single API to provide the best financial data. The mission of this portal is to change the European banking industry for the better. Tink partners up with more than 2500 banks and institutions. Main Tink's partners include PayPal, Klarna, BNP Paribas, ABN Amro, Nordea, and many more. A fascinating 10+ billion dollars are processed through the portal each year. The market segment Tink is targeting are businesses of different sizes. Their clients can either be large banks or even growing FinTech companies. Any company that is looking to provide financial services to their consumers can make use of Tink's resources. This open-banking platform focuses on four main services. The...

Bank Norwegian Bank Norwegian is an international bank established in 2007 in Oslo. Their headquarters are located in Fornebeu, Norway. The first appearance of this bank was on the Norway market in November of 2007, gaining a financial license to conduct banking. After 6 successful years of doing business in Norway only, the Norwegian Bank extended to the Swedish market. From the end of 2015, the Norwegian bank also provides its services to Denmark and Finland. More than 1.5 million customers choose Bank Norwegian as their second bank of choice. A wide customer base is achieved through diverse banking products. Bank Norwegian's sales oriented website This digital bank provides banking opportunities in the form of loans, deposit accounts, and credit cards. The mission of the bank is to provide a fully digital and online banking experience for the customers in the Nordic countries. Flexibility is one of the main goals of Bank Norwegian. They rely on the latest tec...