Sweden’s Northmill has been granted a Visa Principal licence; here’s what this means for the digital bank and its customers

Northmill Bank is a Swedish neobank that aims to improve everyone’s financial life by offering personalised banking services built on intelligence. In a recent development, the neobank announced that it has been granted a Visa Principal licence.

Principal members of Visa, Master card brands are the banks or financial institutions that are authorised to act as “issuing bank”, that is, they can provide credit cards and can act as “acquirers” – means the financial institution can provide transaction processing services.

What does this mean for Northmill Bank?

The licence will help the neobank to offer more control, flexibility, and features to its customers. In the second half of 2021, Northmill already plans to introduce a new card based on customer feedback in both design and functionality. The card will initially be launched for the Swedish market.

Speaking on the development, Hikmet Ego, CEO and co-founder at Northmill Bank says, “This milestone provides room for manoeuvre and gives us the freedom to shape our offering and services in the way we know the customers ask for, without being dependent on other banks.”

Ego adds, “Obviously, there is a lot of work behind getting a Visa Principal licence, but now we look forward to reaping the benefits of it. We will be able to offer even more personal and intelligent banking services, while reaching a global payment network at the same time.”

Helen Björk, product manager at Northmill Bank says that the company knows what customers want from a card – it includes price, design, and functionality. “We took all these parts with us straight into the product development and, therefore, we believe that the card will be truly appreciated among the users.”

Personalised banking services built on intelligence

Founded in 2006 in Stockholm, Northmill Bank’s founders George Kurt and Hikmet Ego had the vision to improve people’s financial life using the latest technology. It has helped thousands of people reduce their interest costs with the product Reduce.

As a completely cloud-based bank, built on AWS and with partners such as Marqeta and Snowflake, Northmill reports that it has the potential to launch a number of different and smart payment services in the future. The bank claims to have already helped more than 200,000 customers. It has about 150 employees in four countries.

Recent developments

Earlier this year, in January 2021, Northmill launched its third savings account. It is a new 24 months fixed-rate savings account with a 1.35 per cent annual interest rate and state-provided deposit insurance up to SEK 1,050,000. The Bank already offers two different savings accounts. One with a variable interest rate of, at date, 0.85 per cent and the other one is a 12 months fixed-rate savings account with, at date, 1.15 per cent interest rate.

In February 2021, Northmill Bank carried out a capital round of SEK 250M (approx €24.46M) through its parent company Northmill Group AB. The capital was raised to continue geographical expansion and to accelerate the development of new products.

And most recently, in July 2021, the neobank recruited Johan Nordström as the bank’s new Chief Credit Officer. Johan has experience from both the finance and tech sectors. Among others, he held various roles for five years at GE Money Bank and following that he spent another five years at Nordax Bank, where he was leading the analytics and credit department. Most recently, Johan comes from the role as Chief Credit Officer at Rocker.