Amsterdam’s Finom acquires electronic-money license in the Netherlands; plans to double its workforce in 2022

Amsterdam-based FINOM, a fintech company that offers a B2B finance service platform that combines payments, expense and team management functions into one mobile-first product , announced that it has acquired an electronic-money license in the Netherlands through its full subsidiary FINOM Payments BV for further growth across all EU markets.

Electronic money license is issued by national financial regulators (supervisory authorities) of the European Union (EU) Member States. Electronic money is a digital alternative to cash and allows users to make cashless payments with money stored on a card or a phone or over the internet.

FINOM says the entire process of licensing was started 14 months ago and finalised in November – making it one of the fastest ever on the market.

Expansion in Europe

With the Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, FINOM is set to accelerate its international expansion in 2022. According to the company, the financial services market for SMEs in the EU is more than $200B with 24 million small and medium companies. B2B fintechs serve less than 2 per cent of them.

The EMI license will enable the company to expand its services across multiple European markets and launch a broader range of services. This includes issuing e-money and providing payment accounts, issuing debit cards, processing SEPA payments, as well as providing payment initiation and account information services. 

Konstantin Stiskin, co-founder of FINOM, says, “With the EMI license, FINOM will now be able to dramatically accelerate its growth and have better control over its processes and scalability. FINOM launched in beta version in November 2020 and in one year we have been able to build best-in-class products, establish processes to scale up our activities in multiple markets and reach a growth rate that has taken other fintech players several years. Acquiring our own license opens a new chapter in FINOM’s journey. Our next goal is to reach 100,000 clients in the EU as soon as possible.”

Most EU-based neobanks and fintechs do not have their own infrastructure, which means they do not fully control their business development activities.

With the current EMI license and the planned international expansion, FINOM’s team is set to grow. In 2022, the company wants to grow its workforce, doubling the size of the team to 250 people and creating new job opportunities in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy.

“Different from your bank”

Founded at the end of 2019 by Iakov Novikov and Konstantin Stiskin, FINOM combines digital business account benefits with multiple services to provide financial solutions for entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and freelancers. It pulls together accounting, financial management, and banking functions for early-stage businesses and SMEs into one mobile-first product.

On the payments side, FINOM currently works with Solarisbank in Germany and with Treezor in France, where it launched its full product offering in Q4 2020. Also in the same year, the company raised €16.8M in funding led by Target Global (Germany) and General Catalyst (US).

FINOM boasts impressive growth with over 3,000 new clients choosing its financial solutions every month in Q4 2021, operating across France, Germany, and Italy (currently only e-invoicing services are available in Italy).