In Europe, banking upstarts are gaining traction in digital banking, with new products and services focused on enterprises and consumers alike, easing account to account payments, international transactions and data security. Think of it as Banking as a Service — and some of these tech-savvy firms have banking licenses, newly-granted, in hand.
In France, Treezor, a banking as a service platform, said this week that has deployed the Thales SafeNet Data Protection On Demand solution for what is being billed as “safety across the entire payment chain, from tier one banks and neo banks to crowdfunding organizations,” as noted in a release.
Treezor is an electronic money issuer and is tied to a regulatory landscape that spans the French regulators and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The companies said that the offerings are scalable, and offer each customer their own dedicated HSM services, segregating financial and financial data.
Banking on Banking Licenses
Separately, B2B payments and international money transfer firm B2B Pay said this past week that it plans to become a regulated financial institution. As reported in this space, and via announcement sent to PYMNTS, the company’s CEO and Founder Neil Ambikar said that the firm will look to accelerate growth, with an eye on rolling out application programming interface (API) enabled banking services.
In other efforts, the company will also be able to offer an unlimited number of International Bank Account Numbers, credit card processing and solutions focused on cryptocurrency. In its efforts to expand, B2B Pay plans to raise about $411,000, which would go toward the implementation of its core banking system and finance its pursuit of licenses, according to the statement. The company’s existing backers have already committed about $164,000 of this funding round, Ambikar said. The strategy also dovetails with API integrations and the emergence of open banking business models.
Elsewhere, in Denmark, the FinTech firm known as Nordic API Gateway, which offers the money app Spiir, said this past week that they have received a payment initiation service provider license (PISP). The company had received an account information service provider license from Danish authorities in 2018.
As reported, the company launched payment infrastructure that facilitates account to account payments across industries and enterprises stretching from banks to retailers. The account to account payments (where, for example, customers can pay friends, and merchants can integrate easy check out payments) will be based on the Nordic API Gateway, first across all Nordic banks and then across Europe. According to reports, the gateway will make it easier for third parties to build instant account to account payments services for consumer and enterprise transactions.
Nordic API Gateway already is supporting major banks including Danske Bank, DNB and Jsyke Bank.
In the United Kingdom
In the U.K., there is a new company with a banking license in place. As reported, Allica has aid that it has been granted a banking license by the Prudential Regulation Authority. That license will let the challenger bank launch banking operations, regulated by both the PRA and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Allica said in the announcement that it acts as a “bespoke bank for SMEs,” targeting small and medium-sized. Solutions on offer include working capital tools that also include loans and payment services
“The banking license is an important milestone in our ambition to offer SMEs a genuine banking alternative,” said Allica CEO Mark Stephens in a statement. “We built Allica specifically for businesses to realize their aspirations to advance. Allica will offer hands-on support from finance experts who are fully committed to providing each customer with tailored business solutions.”
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