Norwegian digital identity company Signicat has acquired Dokobit, a Lithuanian electronic authentication solutions provider with a presence in Estonia, Latvia and Iceland, for an undisclosed sum. This marks the third acquisition by Signicat following that of Encap Security, a Norwegian mobile authentication and security solution provider, and Spain’s Electronic IDentification (eID). Like Signicat, Dokobit is reportedly a Qualified Trust Service Providers (QTSP) on the EU Trust List, ensuring the strictest of assurance for validation of electronic signatures. This acquisition further strengthens Signicat’s product portfolio and expands their market reach into the Baltic countries, helping propel it into Eastern European markets.…

The Estonian Financial Supervision Authority (Finantsinspektsioon) has officially granted an insurance broker license to Herrmann, Huebner & Partner to set up NOMADS INSURE in the country. The firm said that it has emerged as the first e-Residency company to receive this license following an application process of 1.5 years. The two founders, Markus Herrmann and Christoph Huebner, together have accumulated more than four decades of experience in the health insurance sector. Since 2010, they have both been working in their Germany-based company, Leni, Leon & die Luchse, a specialised insurance broker for children’s health insurance consisting of a team of…

Stockholm-based fintech company Invoier, who has built and established a marketplace for fair and transparent trading of invoices, has secured a EUR 4.1 million equity funding from the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) Fund. Invoier’s marketplace enables SMEs to convert invoices into working capital. The marketplace is built on a unique AI-based risk assessment method, making it possible for professional investors to enter a new asset class and bid in real time. The aim is to change the behaviour and challenge the EUR 3,000 billion factoring market by creating a fair and transparent marketplace through technological innovation. The EIC Fund investment…

Newly-established Danish small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) bank kompasbank announced their go-live on Mambu’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) banking platform. On Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform, kompasbank said that it was able to build fast and flexible customer onboarding, loan and deposit processes. The challenger bank claimed to be “the first cloud-only bank in Denmark and embraces a fully digital architecture to differentiate its service and products”. kompasbank had secured its banking license from Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority in March earlier this year to serve the SME segment. Carsten Smith, COO of kompasbank said, “We think Mambu is the right choice to help…

Nets, a payment services provider based in Denmark, has extended their long-term partnership with Estonia’s LHV Bank, while adding new issuing services for the latter’s British subsidiary, LHV UK Limited. ​The extended partnership will see Nets continue to deliver full acquiring services for LHV in Estonia, including terminal rental, payment authorisations and clearing, e-commerce capabilities, dispute management and fraud prevention. In the UK, Nets will support LHV with issuing services including CMS systems, issuer processing, tokenisation services, fraud prevention with AI, dispute and chargeback services, customer service and cards personalisation. The long-term agreement has already entered into force. Andres Kitter,…

Stockholm-based Checkin.com Group announced that it has acquired GetID, an Estonian identity verification software provider, for EUR 8.1 million. Completion of the transaction is expected to take place during August 2021. Checkin.com provides a software that combines multiple UX-systems, data sources, and identity solutions to instantly configure the best possible experience for each end-user at the point of check-in. The acquisition is the first step in Checkin.com’s strategy to add technologies and strong teams by acquisitions, within areas that strengthens its SaaS-software for check-ins. After the acquisition is completed all key personnel and shareholders in GetID will own approximately 3.2%…

Voyager Digital, a publicly-traded cryptocurrency platform in the United States, announced the acquisition of Denmark-based cryptocurrency payment platform Coinify. According to CoinDesk, the deal valued at about US$84 million in stock and cash. Under the terms of the share purchase agreement, the consideration to Coinify shareholders will consist of 5,100,000 of newly issued shares of Voyager Digital Ltd. common stock and US$15 million in cash. As part of the agreement, the company will retain US$5.5 million of cash on the Coinify balance sheet. Voyager will retain substantially all current Coinify employees, entering into employment agreements with key members of the…

Estonian ride hailing app Bolt announced that it has closed a €600 million funding round, increasing its valuation to more than €4 billion. The firm said that the funds will be used to boost its new grocery delivery service Bolt Market as well as accelerate its expansion of existing mobility and delivery products. The funds were raised from a range of investors including Sequoia, Tekne, and Ghisallo, G Squared, D1 Capital, and Naya. Bolt Market will be launched in 10 European countries over the next few months, including the Baltics and Central Europe, Sweden, Portugal, Croatia, and Romania. “After seven…

Curve, a London-based fintech that allows consumers to store their payment cards in a single location, announced the appointment of Renata Sumskaite as CEO and Head of Curve Lithuania, in a move that cements its growth strategy from an EU-licensed base. The Lithuanian office represents a gateway to frictionless trade for Curve and its customers across the European Union. Renata will be focusing on innovation and product development at Curve. Renata came to Curve following a role as Head of Fintech hub ‘Rise Vilnius’ by Barclays and was also Head of the Barclaycard Change Delivery team in Lithuania. She brings…

Eesti Pank (EP), the central bank of Estonia, carried out a research project to assess one possible technical solution for a digital euro along with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the central banks of Spain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Latvia and the Netherlands. EP carried out the experiment as part of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) research project started in October 2020. The research aimed at exploring how a blockchain-based digital euro can serve as the basis for the Estonian e-state. The research also looked into the feasibility of such a solution with regards to the number payments…

In Europe, the Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway have the most advanced open banking ecosystems. Trailblazing regional regulatory regimes, highly developed digital infrastructures, and a pan-Nordic collaborative approach have enabled these countries to take the lead over the rest of Europe, a new research by Mastercard found. The report, titled Open Banking Readiness Index: The Future of Open Banking in Europe, explores the status of open banking in ten selected European markets, and found that across Europe, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are at the forefront of the open banking movement. To date, they are the only countries in…

Estonia-based cross-border payment startup PayQin has raised €300,000 in a seed funding round, pushing the startup’s total funding to US$1 million. Founded in 2017, PayQin operates a comprehensive e-wallet service in West Africa for the unbanked and underbanked population. Its chief aim is to drive financial inclusion in Africa, where the mobile phone penetration is twice the rate of banking access. PayQin’s app allows customers to store mobile money, use cross-border debit cards, make payments, and manage crypto transactions. The startup aims to reach 1 million daily transactions in a year, the press release stated. PayQin is an alumnus of…

The National Bank of Ukraine has given the green signal to Lithuania-based fintech startup Paysera to operate in the country. Paysera has been included in the country’s Register of Payment Systems and after technological arrangements, it will offer money transfers to and from Ukraine to private customers. Transactions will be supported in hryvnias, euros, US dollars. Conversion of hryvnia and other major currencies will also be supported, the statement noted. With the central bank’s approval, Paysera can partner with local banks in Ukraine. This would enable the company to open an account, perform system integration and make transfers. The firm…

The Bank of Lithuania has warned a virtual currency exchange operator Binance about its unlicensed investment services provided in Lithuania and ordered the company to ensure that its publicly available information is not misleading. The Bank of Lithuania has also noted that crypto-asset related services are not regulated or supervised, thus consumers risk losing all their investments. The central bank notes that some online crypto-asset exchange platforms, even though they do not offer or advertise their services in Lithuania directly, enable their customers to invest in derivative financial instruments related to crypto-assets (futures and options), contracts for difference (CFD) or…

Nordic challenger bank Lunar announced a EUR 210 million series D funding round led by family-owned investment company HEARTLAND. Other investors included Kinnevik, one of Europe’s leading growth investors, and Tencent, a leading China-based technology company. Alongside the lead investors, IDC Ventures, Fuel Ventures, MW&L Capital Partners and Peter Mühlmann, the Founder and CEO of Trustpilot, also invested. They will join current investors such as SEED Capital, Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, Socii Capital and Greyhound Capital. The new investment was secured following a rapid acceleration in growth from both private and business customers. Lunar now serves more than 325,000 customers across…

Juni, a Swedish-based banking platform for e-commerce and online marketing companies, has raised US$21.5 million in Series A financing. The firm said that the funding came from partners of DST Global, Felix Capital and additional follow-on from Cherry Ventures and other early investors. The financing will be used to sustain Juni’s momentum by focusing on product development and recruiting. From a product perspective, Juni will introduce a number of features in the coming months such as automation of administrative tasks, a unified view of financials tailored to ecommerce merchants and media buyers, and a number of unique services to financially…

Danish fintech Pleo announced that it has raised US$150 million in a Series C funding round to become a unicorn with a company valuation of US$1.7 billion. The Series C round was co-led by Bain Capital Ventures and Thrive Capital, with contributions from existing investors Creandum, Kinnevik, Founders, Stripes and Seedcamp. Keri Gohman, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures will be joining Pleo’s board of directors. Pleo offers smart company cards that enable employees to buy the things they need for work, while keeping a company’s finance director in control of spending. With the new funds, Pleo will be ramping…

StockRepublic, a Swedish social trading platform for retail investors, announced that it has secured EUR 2 million. The investment round was led by the Swedish venture capital fund Uequity and Commerzbank Group’s early-stage investor main incubator, together with well-known business angels with a background from, among others, E-Trade, Yubico and Minna Technologies. To accelerate this transition and launch StockRepublic widely to the new generation of investors, the firm is currently conducting a proof of concept together with comdirect, which has just under three million customers. This proof of concept will give customers access to all social trading functions and mobile…

Norway-based digital identity specialist Signicat has acquired Spanish Electronic IDentification (eID) which offers complementary solutions for an undisclosed sum to strengthen its European presence. The joint offering aims to provide the highest level of security and compliance of digital identity solutions in the European market, all based on the ‘Strong Digital Identity’ (SDI) concept, developed by eID. This enables a common end-to-end digital onboarding process across the EU in compliance with the most restrictive legislation. After the acquisition, eID will continue as an independent organisation with a separate brand, with a goal of full integration within two years. The acquisition…

Danske Bank A/S has entered into an agreement with OP Financial Group in Finland and the consortium of banks behind Vipps in Norway to merge the three mobile payment providers MobilePay, Vipps and Pivo with the aim to form a comprehensive digital wallet. The banks behind Vipps will own 65% of the new parent company, Vipps AS, Danske Bank will own 25% and the OP Financial Group will own 10%. The parent company, Vipps AS, will be headquartered in Oslo, and the company will be subject to supervision by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authorities. Rune Garborg, the current CEO of Vipps,…