Solarisbank AG, the tech company with a banking license, announced today that it has launched in France, Italy and Spain to offer local IBANs. In addition to covering the entire European Economic Area (EEA) via passporting, this step now provides Solarisbank’s partners uninhibited access to the local financial ecosystems of Europe’s four largest markets.
In just six months, Solarisbank has managed to set up local operations in the three new markets and build up a first-class team of international professionals around three highly experienced general managers.
Jean-Francois Guillaumin, who previously worked for trade finance platform Incomlend Europe, neobanks Nickel and Anytime as well as Western Union, joined Solarisbank earlier this year as General Manager France alongside Francisco Jaramillo, who is in charge of the Spanish market. Before joining Solarisbank, Jaramillo was responsible for the European expansion of the card platform Marqeta in the Banking and Financial Institutions Sector and previously held multiple senior leadership roles for the card schemes Visa and American Express.
The group is completed by Michael Koehler, who will lead Solarisbank’s presence in Italy after spending most of his career in banking, factoring and leasing, including 14 years for the German listed Grenke Group.
„With the activation of local IBANs in France, Italy and Spain, Solarisbank has become a true pan-European platform. Hereby we cater to the ambitious growth plans of our existing partners, but also boost our competitive edge. With the possibility to combine the right financial services tailored to individual needs, Solarisbank offers unparalleled flexibility for companies with European ambitions,” says Timo Weber, Managing Director & General Representative of Solarisbank
Solarisbank drives the emerging trend of embedded finance by enabling global brands like Samsung as well as fast-growing fintechs like Vivid Money to offer state-of-the-art financial services in the European market.
According to research conducted by Solarisbank in cooperation with the Handelsblatt Research Institute in April this year, the potential for embedded finance and thus Banking-as-a-Service is immense. In Europe alone, nearly 500 million bank accounts are up for grabs in the next few years. Lightyear Capital estimates that the global market for embedded finance will grow from around EUR 22.5 billion at present to around EUR 230 billion by 2025.
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Solarisbank is Europe’s leading Banking-as-a-Service platform. As a technology company with a full German banking license, Solarisbank enables other companies to offer their own financial services. Via APIs, partners integrate Solarisbank’s modular banking services directly into their own product offering.
The platform offers digital bank accounts and payment cards, identification and lending services, digital asset custody as well as services provided by integrated third-party providers.
In 2019 Solarisbank established the 100% subsidiary Solaris Digital Assets GmbH to offer a licensed custodial solution for digital assets. To date, Solarisbank has raised more than EUR 160 million from a bluechip shareholder base, including ABN AMRO’s Digital Impact Fund, BBVA, finleap, Global Brain, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Lakestar, Samsung Catalyst Fund, SBI Group, Storm Ventures, Visa, Vulcan Capital, and yabeo Capital.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
