The financial technology sector has faced multiple challenges in the last year. Like many other industries worldwide, the finance sector lost its workforce, and many businesses had to close down. But inefficiencies bring new opportunities, leading the way for fintech companies to emerge and take the role of aiding those affected. Fintech and Sustainable Innovation center Rockit initiated a global discussion with fintech experts from Sweden, UK, Switzerland and Lithuania to understand fintech’s objectives and challenges outside the Lithuanian ecosystem and see where the sector is headed. Inefficiencies create new opportunities Challenges of yesterday create opportunities for tomorrow. Last year…

The Nets Group, a payment provider in Europe, announced the completion of the sale of its account-to-account based services, including clearing, instant payment services, and e-billing solutions, to Mastercard for €2.85 billion. This follows the successful conclusion of the remedy taker approval process stipulated by the European Commission in August 2020. The operations sold to Mastercard represented the majority of Nets’ Corporate Services division, comprising the clearing and instant payment services and e-billing solutions, including Betalingsservice in Denmark and AvtaleGiro/eFaktura in Norway. The proceeds from the transaction will be predominantly used to deliver and support Nets Group’s balance sheet. The…

Swedish payments firm Klarna announced the expansion of its open banking solution across eight more European countries, which now includes Portugal, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ireland, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. As part of the latest expansion, Klarna also introduced the “Account Insights'” feature which turns simple bank statements into unique insights through categorisation and data enrichment. These insights can enable a variety of use cases including personalised budget plans, insurance checks, loan applications, credit and risk assessments, personal finance management applications, and many more, through a simple API integration. Klarna said that it currently supports a total of 24 countries in…

Volvo Cars plans to to become a fully electric car company by 2030 and sell them exclusively online by then. The company intends to only sell fully electric cars and phase out any car in its global portfolio with an internal combustion engine, including hybrids. The company’s transition towards becoming a fully electric car maker is part of its climate plan, which seeks to consistently reduce the life cycle carbon footprint per car through concrete action. Its decision also builds on the expectation that legislation as well as a rapid expansion of accessible high quality charging infrastructure will accelerate consumer…

ePassi Payments, a Finnish mobile payment solution for employee benefits, has entered an agreement to acquire Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services’ (BRS) business in Nordics, including Sodexo Pass Sweden and the Finnish company Eazybreak. Bregal Milestone remains the majority shareholder of ePassi Payments. As part of this transaction, Sodexo will reinvest and become a 15% shareholder of ePassi. Through these acquisitions, ePassi will reportedly further strengthen its position in the Nordics, nearing a userbase of 1.5 million. The combined entity will have close to 9,000 clients, more than 35,000 affiliated merchants, and a Gross Merchandise Volume of approximately EUR 350…

Ooniq, peer-to-peer insurance platform of Workpower, has completed a year-long of testing within the Bank of Lithuania’s regulatory sandbox. The regulatory sandbox allows companies developing innovative financial products and business solutions to test them in a real environment under supervision and consultation of the Bank of Lithuania. The sandbox allows the central bank to identify potential risks and regulatory shortcomings in advance, ensuring that only high-quality and safe products and services enter the market. The peer-to-peer insurance platform allows its members to form groups with similar interests and protect themselves against losses by pooling funds for this purpose. Group members…

Real-time identity verification service iDenfy and international payment platform Verifo announced that they are partnering to secure financial transactions. Verifo said that not only it facilitates cross-border wire transfers, payment collections, and currency exchange services, they also offer customisable all-inclusive white-label solutions for regulated businesses and startups. Verifo’s partnership with iDenfy will allow for greater cybersecurity precautions. The new partnership will reportedly make the daily processes of Verifo easier and more streamlined. Automated identity checks will take down some of the administrative load of the team and allow them to focus on more important tasks. “iDenfy specializes in real-time ID…

Despite headwinds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lithuania’s fintech landscape continued to grow in 2020 with 40 new companies setting up operations, bringing the total number of fintechs in the country to 230, according to Lithuanian investment promotion agency Invest Lithuania. Almost half of these newcomers were international fintech brands opening offices in Lithuania, showcasing the Baltic state’s rising position as the gateway to the European Union (EU) for fintech companies. Lithuania has worked to becoming the preferred location for overseas fintech startups looking to expand into the EU, promising a faster licensing process, fintech-friendly regulators, good local talent, and…

Revolut, a British fintech company offering banking services, announced that it has operationalised its European specialised banking license in Estonia. The specialised bank license allows Revolut Bank to provide limited banking services via its app along with an array of financial services and products that is offered by other Revolut Group companies. Customers in Estonia are now able to upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services from within the app, the upgrade process will reportedly take only a few minutes. Those who upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services will now have their deposits protected under the deposit guarantee scheme.…

The European Central Bank (ECB) has granted Lithuanian capital company SME Digital Financing a specialised bank license following the assessment and proposal of the Bank of Lithuania. Having secured the license, SME Digital Financing will now be able to accept deposits, provide account financing (factoring) services and grant business loans. Contributing to further fintech development, specialised banks help boost competition as well as attractiveness and accessibility of banking services. They have the right to accept deposits, grant loans and provide funds transfer and other usual banking services, however, specialised banks cannot provide investment and other similar financial services. The opportunity…

Sveriges riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, announced that it will be extending its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project named e-krona to the end of February 2022. Riksbank conducted the pilot project in partnership with Accenture, to develop a proposal for a technical solution for an e-krona that can work as a complement to cash without completely replacing cash transactions. The main aim of the pilot is for the Riksbank to increase its knowledge of a central bank-issued digital krona. Riksbank said that the “pilot is to create, in an isolated test environment, a digital krona that is…

Northmill Bank, a Swedish neobank, raised US$ 30 million (SEK 250 million) in a funding round led by M2 Asset Management, a Swedish investment company controlled by Rutger Arnhult, and the institutional investor and asset management firm Coeli. Northmill Bank said that the new capital will be used for continued geographical expansion and accelerate the development of new products. Northmill Bank received a Swedish banking license in September 2019 from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (SFSA) to offer savings, credits, payments and insurance services. The neobank, which just launched its third savings account, plans to launch more products during this…

Billhop, a Swedish company which enables businesses and individuals to pay their invoices by credit card, has closed a €4 million Series A investment round from fintech venture firm Element Ventures. Billhop said that the latest investment from Element Ventures will be used for further product development and to strengthen Billhop’s sales, marketing and customer support functions, in order to meet growing demand for working capital financing solutions, now accelerated by the global economic uncertainty brought about by the pandemic. This is the payment platform that enables businesses, enterprises and individuals to pay any invoice by credit card, regardless of…

Ingka Group, the parent company of furniture retailer IKEA, announced that it has acquired a 49% stake in Ikano Bank with the option to acquire the remaining shares at a later date. The transaction is subject to approvals by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority Finansinspektionen and relevant competition authorities. Ingka Group, who operates 378 IKEA-stores and its e-commerce platform in 31 countries, shows a decisive step into financial services with this recent acquisition. Ingka Group and Ikano Bank originate from the same founder and already have a longstanding commercial partnership where Ikano Bank has served as IKEA Retail’s financial service…

Paysera, a Lithuanian payment processor, announced that it has raked in EUR 13 million in revenue in 2020 which exceeded the revenue of 2019 by 17 percent. The company reported that its unaudited net profit in 2020 was EUR 3.4 million, compared to a profit of EUR 2.02 million the year before. The main activity of Paysera is e-commerce payment processing. At the end of 2020, over 12,000 e-shops, where buyers spent more than EUR 580 million for shopping last year – 50 percent more they spent in 2019 – collected payments for purchases online via the company’s system. In…

Lithuanian-based neobank SME Finance has reported that it chalked up fiscal revenues of EUR 7.7 million in 2020, which showed a 57% increase from the previous fiscal year. The neobank said that its growth was driven primarily by a significant rise in the company’s financing portfolio, to a record EUR 55.1 million, up EUR 22.6 million from fiscal year 2019. Continued successful cooperation with investors further strengthened SME Finance’s lending capacity to satisfy the growing demand for alternative lending. A total of EUR 20 million in loans went to Lithuanian businesses through SME Finance under the economic measure Alternatyva administered…

London-based payment service provider SumUp has acquired Paysolut, a Lithuanian core banking system provider for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help Paysolut expand its team and offer a new level of quality products. In terms of Paysolut’s future, SumUp intends for the company to run its business as usual. No changes to the daily operations and strategy of the company are foreseen, and the management team will maintain operational independence. SumUp will also support additional resources so that Paysolut continues serving its customers. SumUp said that the acquisition of the Lithuanian company aims to create even stronger technology-based banking…

The Estonian Startup Awards 2020 organised by Estonian Founders Society, LIFT99 and Startup Estonia, has announced winners in 9 categories among which fintech startup Veriff bagged The B2B Saas Startup of 2020 award. Launched in 2019, the award recognises the achievements of  Estonian founders, startups and community initiatives. The search for nominees began in autumn 2020 with a public nomination round. 230 people from the community nominated almost 300 inspiring founders, startups, and initiatives. After a thorough background check around 80 candidates made it to the shortlist. The final voting took place from 31st Dec to 6th Jan and was…

Crunchfish announces a new patent pending innovation with application number SE2150109-3 that extends offline frictionless mobile payments to also support payment cards. This is especially important in CBDC implementations as cards as a bearer instrument is important to ensure financial inclusion. The innovation Crunchfish brings is that cards can be topped-up and used much easier. By simply tapping a card on a mobile the user may top-up the balance on the card or alternatively pay to an offline wallet on the mobile. The Digital Cash cards may also be implemented with the dual functionality of both maintaining a balance on…

Finnish proptech platform CHAOS has announced the successful closure of a €1.5 million funding round led by sustainability-focused Swedish investment firm Nidoco. Angel investors Kai Keituri, Tapio Heikkilä, and Stefan Lindberg had also participated in the funding round. The investment team will work with CHAOS to scale their real-estate forecasting insights so investors and developers can better assess risks and increase their competitive edge when building urban portfolios across the world. The CHAOS team said that it plans to make further improvements to its technical forecasting solution planned that aims to deliver deeper data insights to customers. The team is…