The fintech industry has exploded with innovations in the past few years, thanks to technological advancements. What used to be considered as an idea before like mobile payments and other financial options have become standard these days.
New mobile payment feature!
Stocard, a German mobile wallet company has announced the launch of a new mobile payment feature as it reaches 50 million users globally. Starting today, Stocard users can pay via a virtual Mastercard issued in the app, an option which will be rolled out across Europe later this year.
In an exclusive interview with Silicon Canals, Björn Goß, CEO and co-founder of Stocard says, “Currently, Stocard supports Visa and Mastercard as funding cards. Users can add all their bank cards to their loyalty cards and select which of these cards they use to fund their wallets with. In the future, Stocard will also offer several ways to connect bank accounts, such as bank transfers and direct debits.”
Talking about the possibility of adding direct debit cards, Goß adds, “Stocard’s ambition is to offer users maximum flexibility. Thus, direct debits will be offered as well. Beyond that, other ways to easily connect funding sources in the way that’s most convenient to each user will be offered. For example, soon users will be able to auto-load money from cards they added to Stocard: whenever the Stocard wallet balance drops below a certain amount, Stocard automatically adds additional money to the Stocard wallet making sure the wallet is always sufficiently funded.”
Future of banking is not banks!
Founded by Björn Goß, David Handlos, and Florian Barth, Stocard lets users store all their loyalty cards in one place – on their smartphones. The company is on a mission to build the leading mobile wallet platform making the daily shopping experience easy, engaging, and rewarding.
Goß adds, “Stocard wants to build the leading mobile wallet and believes that the future of banking is not banks. Thus, there is no big ambition for Stocard to become a bank itself.”
Uses Wirecard’s license to offer financial services!
As per the company claims, sign-up only takes a minute and is completely digital, with no paperwork required. Just like with their loyalty cards, users will now be able to add their bank cards to the Stocard app and select which one they want to fund their wallet with. The app has Stocard’s proprietary NFC technology embedded to make it easy.
In the long run, Stocard wants to offer more financial products such as Point Of Sale lending (buy now, pay later), cashback, and savings within their digital wallet. It should be noted that Stocard is using Wirecard’s license to offer financial services, including payments.
Expansion plans!
The mobile wallet company counts 50 million customers predominantly located in various places. “Stocard has been launched in Canada, where already 10% of the population is using Stocard for their daily shopping. After this successful proof of concept for the North American market entry, supporting its ambition to build the leading mobile wallet for the Western World, Stocard has also silently launched in the US, which will become a bigger focus later. The obvious next steps in the near-term future are the roll-out of the payment feature across Europe” adds Goß.
Raised €27.4 million!
Last year, shoppers made 1.7 billion purchases with the app, spending close to €40 billion annually. According to the company claims, Stocard customers spared €2 billion globally in 2019. To date, the company has raised €27.4 million funding over 5 rounds. The last funding was raised from Macquarie Capital in 2018.
About the funding, Goß says, “Stocard is very well funded. Even during Corona, the company is growing fast – we are also still hiring – and believe that we will be one of the winners emerging from the crisis. Thus, we see strong interest in the market and it, therefore, might be that we close another round this or next year to further accelerate our growth and build the leading mobile wallet for the Western World and growing from 50 to 200, 300 million users.”
The company now operates in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, the Benelux countries, and Australia.
Main image credits: Stocard
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more European technology news
01
From telecom veteran to Dutch Startup Visa success: The Jignesh Dave story