Raisin Bank recently acquired the payments division of Bankhaus August Lenz (BAL), a private bank based in Germany. The acquisition will allow Raisin Bank to support electronic payment transactions and cash solutions for its partners and customers. The deal will also connect Raisin Bank to over 4,500 ATMs throughout Germany.
The subsidiary of Raisin, Raisin Bank, operates as a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider, offering partners the ability to implement business models that require a banking license. The bank develops customised products for its clients and helps solve regulatory, supervisory, legal, and compliance matters.
The bank’s officials explained that classical incumbent banks always try to deliver the whole value chain themselves. Most of the software they use is built in-house and hardly anything is sourced from outside companies. Newer platforms and ecosystem providers are trying to offer more complimentary options that support the back-end functions of an institution, as opposed to the customer side of operations.
Raisin Bank works with institutional investors and platforms that don’t hold a banking license but, in some parts of the value chain, have licensed activities that may be related to loan origination, payments, or accounts compliance solutions.
Representatives of the bank also added that in Europe, there are probably 10 or so providers, and not everybody is licensed to do everything in every country, so they mainly focus on continental Europe. It’s hard to define the market and market share, but the market is growing quite a bit, so most of them grow by 50+% year over year.
In the past, Raisin Bank’s main focus in the market was on loan servicing, which involved merchant cash advance, project finance, SME and consumer straight loans, and Buy Now, Pay Later solutions.
Despite those capabilities, Raisin Bank was looking to diversify its position. It was initially looking to build in-house payment methods, but as BAL was looking to sell, that gave Raisin Bank the right opportunity to acquire the payments division.
In a statement, Raisin’s officials said that their bank is strategically strengthening payment capabilities, knowledge market access, and also diversifying revenue streams because regulations and markets may change. Part of the payment services Raisin Bank offers is related to cash recirculation. Many people are still withdrawing cash from the market, and thanks to the recent acquisition, Raisin Bank now serves roughly 10% of all ATMs in Germany.
By combining Banking-as-a-Service and payment features, Raisin Bank can expand its availability as a provider. Through acquiring the payment service division, it can offer its clients three main capabilities.
As already stated, Raisin Bank will be able to do cash recirculation as well as circulation usage and serve ATMs throughout Germany. The second is non-cash services, which involves a lot of direct debit processing, and the third involves card issuance. Raisin Bank did not issue cards before the acquisition, and it will now be able to do so based on the bank’s related ATM services, as well as other new plans on the horizon.
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