Berlin fintech Raisin patents Savings-as-a-Service tech in US
Raisin, the Berlin-based savings marketplace, has patented its Savings-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology for US banks and credit unions. First reported by Banking Dive, the patent arrives more than half a year after the fintech launched in the US.
The stateside roll-out followed its acquisition of Choice Financial Solutions in January 2020. The Spanish-American deposit software provider offered it a foothold into partnerships with American banks and a 2011-patented, market-linked, certificate of deposit (CD) product.
The fintech calls it “an interactive graphical user interface (GUI)”
The Goldman Sachs and PayPal-backed backed fintech’s SaaS US product suite is designed for banking incumbents looking for “cost-effective new deposits” and account holder retention solutions.
Raisin currently holds two US patents but is seeking more for future product releases.
“It’s a defensive strategy,” Iñigo San Martin, Raisin’s US’s chief operating officer, tells Banking Dive.
“It was an eye-opening scenario for the German founders. We don’t have any patents in Europe, and as far as I know, are not pursuing any patent in the European Union.”
The patent
The patent, filed on 12 January, argues that “conventional systems generally only offer a relatively small, limited set of pre-defined data structures”.
The fintech calls the technology “an interactive graphical user interface (GUI)”, which can create “any number of truly and user-customisable data structures on the fly”.
These structures can then be “automatically and fully managed throughout their respective life-cycles, without increasing the computational burden”.
This is the technology which informs Raisin’s “liquidity time deposit” product. It allows a depositor to choose their own distribution schedule. So they don’t have to wait for maturity to get the principal back.
“It’s basically allowing banks to offer a distribution time deposit or liquidity time deposit, which covers expected cash outflows,” San Martin tells Banking Dive.
“Any bank offers the same savings account, the same time deposit [offerings], and through our technology, we allow banks to de-commoditise the time deposit space and to offer value beyond rate.”
Raisin’s US plan
The Berlin-based fintech, which has raised $236.5 million to-date, can already integrate with some FIS banking core systems. As well as all of Jack Henry’s core systems.
San Martin tells Banking Dive Raisin plans to develop integrations with “as many core systems as possible” in the US.
In America, brokered deposits carry more risk than core deposits in the eyes of regulators. Which is why Raisin is targeting this market.
According to San Martin, the German fintech plans to roll out a US savings product marketplace. Much like the one it operates in Europe, it’s likely to emerge via a broker-dealer licence later this year.
In Europe, Raisin helps small banks compete with similarly-sized players abroad. Centrale Kredietverlening (CKV), a family-owned Belgian savings and lending bank, is one such bank which does this.
“We can source money competitively from alternative platforms like Zinspilot or Raisin, and balance this with the fees we have with local agents,” chief digital officer (CDO), Emmanuel Lambert told FinTech Futures in May.
Marketplaces like Raisin allow CKV to compete with banks in other European countries, such as Malta and Lithuania, where interest rate competition will vary, rather than just competing with local incumbent banks such as Belfius, Rabobank, and ING.
Not so dissimilar in the US, Raisin offers a new playing field for one of the world’s busiest and most complicated financial systems. America’s more than 5,000 banks and credit unions battling on one platform for savers would indeed change the game.
Read next: Raisin launches deposit solutions for US banks and credit unions
