Luxembourg-based fintech company Banking Circle Group announced that it has acquired Account-to-Account (A2A) payment provider SEPAexpress to expand its financial ecosystem.
With this acquisition, Bayern-based SEPAexpress will gain access to technology infrastructure and financial resources to accelerate its growth.
The announcement comes a couple of months after Banking Circle Group acquired Amsterdam-based fintech startup Biller.
Acquisition’s benefits
The addition of SEPAexpress to the Banking Circle Group ecosystem complements its e-commerce solutions, including embedded finance, business payments and card issuing, and B2B Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL).
According to Banking Circle Group, SEPAexpress will continue to operate autonomously and is aiming for triple-digit growth in 2022.
SEPAexpress: What you need to know
Founded by Franz-Xaver Guttenberger and Viktor Brenner in 2017, SEPAexpress provides trusted white-labelled Account-to-Account (A2A) payments for Payments Service Providers (PSPs), merchants, and corporates in Europe.
A2A payments move money directly from the payer’s bank account to the merchant’s or service provider’s bank account through all instant payment networks involved.
SEPAexpress says that this type of credit transfer is inexpensive, push-only, and only takes a few seconds to complete.
It is predicted that more than 20 per cent of e-commerce transactions in Europe will be made by A2A payment options by 2023, claims Banking Circle.
Franz Guttenberger, CEO of SEPAexpress, says, “By joining the Banking Circle Group ecosystem we will be able to capitalise on the established infrastructure and financial resources to realise our vision of extending our services across Europe. Businesses across the region need to be able to focus on their customer propositions and, by utilising our services, they don’t need to worry about the payment process.”
Banking Circle: What you need to know
Anders la Cour founded Banking Circle in 2013. It is a fully licensed bank committed to building a local clearing network for all major currencies, to deliver the fastest, lowest cost payments, with no hidden fees for its clients.
Banks and payments businesses can access a range of banking services, such as multi-currency bank accounts, local clearing, cross-border payments, and flexible business lending, all compliantly and securely without the need to build their own infrastructure and correspondent banking partner network.
Through flexible, scalable, and future-proof solutions, Banking Circle is enabling financial institutions to help their customers transact across borders in a way that was previously not possible. Currently, it has offices in London, Munich, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.
Anders la Cour, Chief Executive Officer of Banking Circle Group, says, “The quality and simplicity of the solutions from SEPAexpress are without compare in the industry. Its suite of offerings is a natural fit with the Banking Circle ecosystem and we’re excited to have the company on board to serve the ever-growing payment needs of businesses worldwide. We look forward to working closely with SEPAexpress and welcome the entire team to the Group.”
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