Top developments in the European FinTech ecosystem (June 2021)

By Megha Bhattacharya

In Europe, regulatory tailwinds have helped transform the continent into a hotbed of FinTech activity. Open Banking and PSD2 have enabled the rise of challenger banks and middleware data players, and have also been leading to market consolidation. The development of FinTech supports the growth of niche markets in Europe, such as the ever-developing alternative finance, crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, as well as automated loans, robo-advisors and automated investment management.

Check out the top 3 areas of developments in the European FinTech ecosystem in June 2021 –

1. Open Banking

Visa, this month, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tink, a European open banking platform. Visa will pay total financial consideration of €1.8 billion, inclusive of cash and retention incentives, to acquire FinTech Tink. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Challenger credit reference agency Credit Kudos also launched a new Open Banking decision engine to enable credit providers to automate credit policies, grow their loan books, and implement real-time decisioning with no or minimal technical integration. Leading lenders Admiral Financial Services and 247 Money have already adopted the new technology, unlocking automated underwriting so they can transform their operations.

Hometrack, a provider of insight and intelligence to the UK mortgage market, appointed Moneyhub, the Open Finance data, intelligence, and payments platform for customer-centric organisations, as its preferred Open Banking partner. The integration of FinTech Moneyhub’s Open Banking technology into Hometrack’s Credit Risk Hub will facilitate streamlined mortgage journeys for lenders, brokers and consumers alike.

2. Payments

The month of June saw Italian PayTech SIA sign a Memorandum of Understanding with BANCOMAT to create a new supply chain for BANCOMAT, PagoBANCOMAT and BANCOMAT Pay payment and cash withdrawal systems. This agreement reinforces a nearly 40-year partnership that includes, in 2018, the launch of the new BANCOMAT Pay digital payment service.

TietoEVRY, MYPINPAD and Surfboard Payments also announced a partnership with an aim to bring about a significant digital transformation in the payments industry in the Nordics. The partnership brings a newly developed payment solution to the Nordic market that enables merchants to securely accept payments via any Android or iOS device without the need for single-purpose card terminals. The solution supports the consumer’s choice of payment methods, such as card, Swish, mobile payments, or invoices.

Poland-based Conotoxia announced this month that holders of its multi-currency cards can make contactless payments with their phone and smartwatch, use online payments and withdraw cash from ATMs using Google Pay. The only requirement is to have the Google Pay app, available in the Google Play store, and to connect the card to it – this applies to both physical and virtual card versions. They also have the option to conduct contactless payments with their wearable device and withdraw money from ATMs with Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay.

3. Transaction Banking 

Goldman Sachs, this month, announced the launch of Transaction Banking (TxB) in the UK. Since launching in the US last June, the company stated that it has attracted more than 250 clients, taking on over $35 billion in deposits and processing trillions of dollars through its systems. The launch of this business in the UK will bring a suite of new services to corporate and institutional clients via a digital-first cash management platform.

Societe Generale also selected Temenos to modernize the account management and payment systems for its Global Transaction Banking activities in Europe and Asia. Temenos agile technology platform will enable Societe Generale to deliver sophisticated corporate banking products and services with digital-first experiences to stay ahead of the curve.

The Bank will replace existing legacy systems with Temenos’ cloud-native banking platform in 13 countries across Europe and Asia as part of a strategic transformation plan to offer new and differentiating global transaction banking services and drive growth. Temenos Payments will provide the payments engine for financial transactions across all Asian countries. With this next-generation platform, the bank’s international entities will be ISO20022-ready domestically and internationally. And the bank will benefit from the agility and flexibility to process payments from any channel, external or internal, with different message or file formats, all in real-time.

READ MORE: UK Financial Services Technology Market Report by IBS Intelligence