German savings marketplace Raisin acquires MHB Bank
Savings marketplace Raisin is bucking the current trend by buying Frankfurt-based MHB Bank, its long-time servicer.
Financial details were not disclosed
The Berlin-based fintech says it will expand its areas of operation and value chain. While the firm is keen on open banking, it is not that keen on being open. Financial details were not disclosed.
MHB was founded in 1973 and Raisin will become the sole owner of the bank, which since 2005 has been in the hands of an affiliate of American private equity firm Lone Star.
Raisin CEO and co-founder Dr. Tamaz Georgadze explains: “Together with MHB, we can continue to develop – and seamlessly integrate – the services we offer customers, partner banks and distribution partners.”
Raisin provides its customers access to a variety of savings and investment products from across Europe. It has more than 165,000 customers and provides over 250 products offered by nearly 70 European banks on the fintech’s seven platforms.
As its service bank in Raisin’s largest market of Germany, MHB handles account management, customer identification and financial transactions, “all the preserve of licensed financial institutions”.
In the past few years Raisin says it has expanded the services it provides customers and banks, particularly with respect to the range of offers and the availability of its products in the entire European Economic Area (EEA). The new acquisition is designed to expedite this growth.
Along with that, the firm wants to speed up the onboarding process for deposit banks and distribution partners like o2 Banking of Telefónica Germany and N26.
The acquisition of the shares in MHB is still subject to final approval by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the European Central Bank (ECB).
The fintech is doing pretty well as it recently closed a €100 million financing round.
In 2017 it took over PBF Solutions in the UK, which runs Raisin’s UK branch.
