European digital bank N26 has increased its customer base by 200,000 users in just 14 months as digital bank solutions become increasingly more popular in Europe; the company has also reported a new transactions milestone of 3 billion euros ($3.1 billion); the Berlin-based company is targeting tech savvy millennials and has introduced a number of competitive features to attract new customers including a lending product that allows for mobile loans up to 25,000 euros ($26,556); the business has raised over $55 million in capital and is planning to expand to Britain in 2017. Source
Raisin has reported over 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in investment through its platform; the company offers investors a range of savings account investments across the European Union and facilitates the account funding for the investors; the platform has gained investment of 300 million euros ($318 million) in the past three months and expects to reach the 3 billion euro ($3.2 billion) mark in the first half of 2017. Source
Scalable Capital has announced a partnership with Siemens Private Finance; Scalable Capital will offer wealth management options with daily rebalancing to individual risk profiles for Siemens employees in Germany; this adds to the services already offered by Siemens Private Finance which currently include insurance, pensions and mortgage lending. Source
German-based marketplace lender Bitbond has partnered with African payments provider BitPesa to improve the lending experience for small and medium enterprise (SME) borrowers; Bitbond will enhance the blockchain lending services of its platform by incorporating cross-border payments through BitPesa; the BitPesa payments platform can make payments in 20 minutes and is now live in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania. Source
Auxmoney is an online lending platform based in Germany; the platform grew origination volumes by 75% in the year to €316 million across 40,000 loans; the company now has lent around €700 million across 100,000 loans to date; last year auxmoney announced a partnership with digital bank N26 to expand their borrower base; auxmoney was profitable for the first time in the second half of 2017 which sets them apart from many platforms. Source
Target Global, based in Berlin has closed a new fund; the fund will focus on Seed and Series A rounds and expects to fund 20 companies primarily in Germany and Israel; Shmuel Chafets, General Partner at Target Global stated, “Target Global’s Early Stage Fund will serve as a bridge connecting Tel Aviv and Berlin. Germany in general and Berlin more specifically have been able to produce great companies, but if Berlin truly hopes to become a global tech hub it must open itself up to real innovations and groundbreaking technologies. On the other hand, If Israel wants to continue to be the “start up nation” , it has to create sustainable, long-term companies and efficient business processes. We already see some early signs of collaboration taking place, but we believe we can help expand it to other industries.” Source
The two companies are both based in Berlin and will collaborate on SME loan financing; solarisBank has initially provided an eight digit investment for financing loans on the Lendico peer-to-peer lending platform; Lendico launched in 2014 and has total lending volume of over EUR100 million. Source
Businesses across Europe have reported vastly different experiences in their efforts to secure the financial support promised by their respective...
Wirecard is a German payments provider that has helped to set up the current boom in fintech and banking apps in Britain; Wirecard is seen as the infrastructure behind many fintech startups that have raised hundreds of millions of pounds in the UK; companies use Wirecard to sublet their banking license and because they are able to issue cards from Visa and Mastercard. Source
The company reported an increase in profits and sales last year which were helped by growth in the Nordics and Germany; Klarna processed €18bn in transactions last year which was an increase of 42%; the company partnered with Asos, Topshop and JD Sports in the UK to drive further growth; in the US they have partnered with Microsoft. Source