5 Spanish FinTechs revolutionising the financial space

By Megha Bhattacharya

According to a study by SEFO, Spain has seen a five-fold increase in its number of FinTech firms, many of which are the result of ambitious entrepreneurs whose solutions are supporting the digitalisation of Spanish SMEs. Although FinTech firms were expected to compete directly with established banks, the two sectors increasingly collaborate through funding and innovation labs.

The FinTech sector has sustained significant growth in Spain in recent years, measured by both the number of players and the private investment it has attracted.

Check out these 5 emerging Spanish FinTechs –

1. ID Finance

Founded in 2012 in Barcelona, ID Finance is a financial technology company that offers state-of-the-art technology, data science and credit scoring, and aims to transform consumer digital finance in the markets of Europe and Latin America.

Its scoring engine analyses data, including behavioural biometrics, identifies anomalies and increases efficiency of risk assessment by 50%. Recently, the company announced that it has become the first company in its sector to offset its carbon footprint in Spain and become a carbon-neutral company.

The company’s headquarters is located in Barcelona, Spain, with further offices in São Paulo, Brazil, Mexico City, Mexico, and an engineering office in Minsk, Belarus.

2. Bnext

Spanish mobile-first neobank Bnext offers users with a card and a linked mobile marketplace featuring banking products from select partners. The company also provides an account aggregation feature to manage traditional bank accounts from within the app. Users can connect their existing bank accounts to the platform and manage their finances in one place, at any time.

The challenger bank recently partnered with mobile commerce technology company, Button, in a bid to enable the neobank’s customers to shop and save money with brands including AliExpress, Groupon, and Black Limba. The partnership allows Bnext to enhance customer engagement and offer users an incentive to check their savings on their daily spend and accelerate the bank’s expansion across Spain and Mexico. Bnext, this month, also raised $13 million in a funding round led by its existing investors, including DN Capital, Redalpine, Speedinvest, Founders Future, Enern, Digital Horizons, Kreos Capital and Cometa -formerly Variv.

Launched in 2018, Bnext claims to have around 300,000 active users and more than EUR 100 million in monthly transactions. It operates in the European Union (EU) under an e-money license.

3. buguroo

Spanish online fraud prevention specialist, buguroo, recently launched its new COVID-19 Online Banking Fraud Resources Centre. The company stated that the development allows consumers and companies to check for scams amongst COVID-related emails, SMS messages, and social posts, thus countering the increasing instances of fraud amidst the pandemic.

The company collects parameters related to the customer’s behavioral biometrics and environment, including smartphone and mouse movements, keystrokes, device profiling, geolocation, etc to protect financial services customers from all known fraud use cases including synthetic fraud.

buguroo’s COVID-19 centre offers a centralised way for consumers to check for scams and online fraud. Visitors are able to report and check the legitimacy of messages they receive and access updated information offered in the hub, including the latest fraud campaigns and social engineering tricks being deployed by cybercriminals.

4. PecunPay

Established in 2016, PecunPay enables companies and merchants to offer financial solutions to their clients under its legal protection and regulation of the Bank of Spain. It allows customers to operate financial transactions without a bank account.

Recently, IBM announced that Spain-based payments and electronic money exchange solutions provider PecunPay is all set to select Red Hat OpenShift by utilizing IBM’s services to boost its business processes. The supplier states that IBM will implement Red Hat’s platform for the Spanish FinTech and will manage its technology infrastructure for enhancing client service delivery.

The FinTech offers payment solutions including prepaid and debit cards issuing, person-to-person & person-to-merchant mobile payments, card-present & card-not-present payment gateways, attended and unattended POS acquiring and deposit acquisition through electronic money accounts.

5. Nemuru

Nemuru allows companies and service sales professionals to offer financing channels of up to €30,000 immediately and flexibly to their customers in less than three minutes and through mobile phones, helping them to scale up their business thanks to the possibility of closing more sales with higher average amounts.

Recently, Spain-based multi-FinTech platform, Nemuru has launched a new funding round with the participation of national and international investors including Banco Sabadell’s corporate venture vehicle InnoCells, Bankia FinTech Venture as well as renewed commitment from Antai Venture Builder, Encomenda, Lánzame and the rest of their partners. International investors such as Plug and Play (US) and Scale Lab Andorra have also participated in the funding round.

The pre-Series A round is expected to help Nemuru to scale its business model in Spain, start its internationalisation process, strengthen its team and launch new products.

ALSO, READ: Global FinTech Use Cases in Financial services by IBS Intelligence