The finance start-up Raisin is expanding further into the German banking market. The Berlin-based company, which runs the WeltSparen savings platform in Germany, is buying the MHB Bank in Frankfurt, Raisin announced on Thursday.
"The acquisition will allow other banks to be more easily connected to the deposit business, distribution partners to be better integrated and services for customers to be interlinked," founder Tamaz Georgadze told dpa.
MHB's banking licence will also be useful for Raisin's further expansion. So far, the company holds various licences for the brokering of deposit products.
The acquisition price was not disclosed. In February, Raisin had obtained 100 million euros (113 million dollars) in financing from an investor group including US payment service Paypal.
Through the WeltSparen platform, Raisin offers overnight money and fixed-term deposits from 67 partner banks in Europe with relatively high interest rates. The company also provides access to savings accounts.
Such portals are popular in Germany since savers currently only get very low interest rates from their banks. Raisin says it has brokered more than 11 billion euros in deposits, for instance to banks in Italy, Portugal or Cyprus.
MHB Bank, which has since 2005 belonged to the US finance investor Lone Star, already manages the accounts of WeltSparen clients.
Savers using the portal can see the conditions offered by many different banks at a glance, but do not need to open an account with a foreign financial institution. Instead, they sign up with Raisin.
The small MHB bank, which has 35 employees and posted 4.3 million euros in revenue in 2017, also works for other finance start-ups. Its clients include the real estate financing platform Bergfuerst and the credit intermediary Creditshelf.
Its acquisition by Raisin still has to be approved by financial regulators.
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