BNP Paribas, France's largest bank, is doubling down on their investment in technology; the bank plans to invest 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) over the next three years; the bank stated they want to "build the bank of the future by continuing to grow the businesses and implementing an ambitious program of digital transformation, new customer experience and cost savings"; the investment will be directed towards tech labs, company incubators and internal app development. Source
Orange is a large French telecom company located in France; users will be able to create an account in an Orange store or completely online; service will be open to non-Orange customers; there will be no monthly fees provided users use their attached payment card; Orange has also partnered with IBM's Watson to provide user support and is also working to add insurance products and loans to the service. Source
In our latest guest post Jorrit van Rijswijk of Dynamic Credit digs into all of the European SME support programs...
Yomoni has raised $5 million from Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Iéna Venture; the firm provides a robo advisory service in France where the concept of robo advice is still very new; the firm will use the funds to expand its workforce and add new features; fees for the service are approximately 1.60% per year; the firm currently has $12.9 million in assets under management and is targeting $1.08 billion by 2020 with plans to potentially expand in Europe. Source
Businesses across Europe have reported vastly different experiences in their efforts to secure the financial support promised by their respective...
Qonto is a french startup building a modern business banking solution, aiming to become "The banking alternative for entrepreneurs and startups" according to its website; the company raised $1.7 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and Alven Capital; Valar Ventures has also invested in digital bank N26 and TransferWise; Qonto wants to provide a wide variety of services including allowing receipt uploads to make filing taxes easier; they plan to integrate with other fintech products to transfer money and manage payments; launch is currently slated for April. Source
Business Insider provides data on the number of challenger banks by country; this week Carrefour Banque, a subsidiary of Carrefour, that also operates a multinational retailer, shared that they were launching a new current account under the name C-Zam; the retailer operates in 30 countries and has over 1,000 stores in France which puts them in a unique position to acquire customers; other players prevalent in the French market include BNP Paribas which launched Hello Bank in 2013 and ING Direct which launched in 2010; startups Qonto and N26 also operate in Europe. Source
Finexcap, an online invoice financing platform, has partnered with Sage to expand its customer base; through the partnership the two firms have created Sage Clic&Cash; Sage Clic&Cash will offer invoice financing to approximately 600,000 small business clients using the software product Sage or Ciel. Source
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. The EU announced last week that it would suspend the Growth and Stability Pact....
I spent a week in France and Germany recently to meet with the marketplace lending leaders there. I found a...