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…

UAB Maneuver (Genome), an electronic money institution focused on alternative banking and payment solutions, will be the payment provider for parking services in Vilnius, Lithuania. Genome said that its services will be available in three more cities namely Kaunas, Klaipėda, and Trakai where the m.Parking app is used. Lithuanian citizens in Vilnius can now pay for parking with their credit cards using the parking app where Genome will tokenise users’ card details for safety reasons . The Municipal Enterprise has updated its infrastructure to accept more transactions and provide clients with this service. The decision to add on more payment…

kevin., a Lithuanian payments startup, announced that it has raised €1.5 million in seed funding to scale into new markets in Europe. The funding came from a number of European business angels from the finance and insurance industries. kevin. currently operates across the Baltics, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal. In 2021, it plans to enter 15 more European markets and is targeting enough bank connections to cover 80% of customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). Part of its new funding will also be invested into further product development, with a POS solution in the pipeline. kevin. said in a…

Payments service provider Svea and Nordic API Gateway, Denmark’s open banking platform, signed a new partnership that is set to boost e-commerce checkout for a wide range of merchants in Finland through the latter’s platform. The open banking platform is currently live in 21 European markets and expects to be fully rolled out with their payment initiation module across Europe during 2021. Nordic API Gateway reportedly processes more than half a million PSD2 payments monthly for customers like OP Financial Group, Checkout Finland, Danske Bank, DNB, Lunar and more. The number the open banking firm is expected to grow tenfold by…

The Nordic countries are placing themselves at the forefront of the open banking movement. In Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, traditional financial institutions and fintechs are rapidly embracing the trend which they perceive as a major opportunity for their businesses, a research commissioned by Nordic API Gateway found. The study, conducted in early 2020, found that out of more than 100 decision makers within the financial sector, payment and accounting services industries, 82% viewed open banking as an opportunity, and 58% believed that PSD2 had already had a positive impact on the Nordic economy. The research found that Nordic financial…

The Lithuanian-based e-payment network Paysera has announced its expansion plans to Spain, where the company Paysera España was established in the city of Valencia. Financial services and a trademark developed in Lithuania are brought to Spain by the owners of the gold retailer Quick Gold, Spanish businessmen who are starting to provide Paysera services under a joint activity agreement. Quick Gold is said to have a gold trade network stretching through more than 20 cities in Spain and consisting of almost 40 points of sale. “We, as a fintech company, already have clients in Spain. However, the start of our…

In the Baltic region, banks are embracing open banking with most of the major ones giving third-party providers regulated access to account information through developer portals. Data from Latvian open banking startup Nordigen and Openbankingtracker.com suggest that at least 11 banks in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have set up developer portals, in addition to digital banks N26 and Revolut, as well as banking platforms SatchelPay, Seven Seas and Nano, which all offer APIs for third-party providers. Currently, active developer portals in the region include those provided by Swedbank, SEB, Luminor, Citadele, Siauliu Bankas, Meridian Trade Bank, PrivatBank, Signet Bank, Coop…

Yapily, a London-based fintech startup, has announced plans to set up in Vilnius, Lithuania which is the company’s third European office. Yapily joins a growing number of UK fintechs including Revolut, Curve and Square that chose Lithuania as the location for its European hub. Yapily was established in 2017, shortly after the EU’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) granted third-party access to customer data of financial institutions. The legislation, which aims to stimulate competition in the financial services market, compelled providers of such services to innovate their API and open banking practices. Yapily’s client base include American Express, IBM, Intuit…

Swedish fintech startup Minna Technologies has raised €15.5 million (£14 million) during a Series B fundraising led by Element Ventures with support from MiddleGame Ventures, Nineyards Equity and Visa, to help retail banks enable their subscription management offering. The new Series B funding takes the total Minna Technologies has raised so far to over €23 million (£20.8 million). The funding will allow the company to scale the technology and bring its services to more customers across the world, with requests from all continents. Founded in 2016, Minna enables customers to manage subscription services via their bank’s app. The platform can…

Bank of Lithuania reported that the number and value of payments made through its payment system CENTROlink had doubled in 2020, while instant payments increased by more than four times. Keeping in this mind, Bank of Lithuania has changed the fees applied to CENTROlink services and will take a more rigorous approach in assessing payment service providers and their management reputation since the beginning of this year. “CENTROlink plays an important role in promoting the development of the payment services sector, and this is reflected in its performance indicators. Particularly notable is the recent surge in instant payments, which shows…

The Danish fintech startup scene has grown significantly over the last few years, rising from only 70 fintech companies in 2015 to more than 250 in 2021, according to numbers from industry trade group Copenhagen Fintech. In 2020, Danish fintechs raised a record of 2.588 billion DKK (US$427 million), up 82.25% from the previous year at 1.42 billion DKK (US$234 million). The 2020 Tradeshift deal (1.650 billion DKK or US$272 million) alone accounted for more than half of all funding raised by Danish fintech companies that year. As the sector continues to grow and mature, the number of partnerships between…