Open finance fintech Fabrick to acquire finAPI from Germany’s Schufa
European open finance fintech Fabrick has entered into an agreement to acquire German open banking platform finAPI to expand its presence into the DACH region.
Fabrick to acquire finAPI from Schufa
The agreement will see Fabrick purchase a 75% stake in the platform, currently held by private credit bureau Schufa in Germany, for an undisclosed sum. The remaining 25% stake will stay with finAPI founders Florian Haagen and Martin Lacher.
Founded in Munich in 2008, finAPI offers open banking, data intelligence, KYC and payment services. It claims to currently serve over 350 clients, including banks, fintechs, software providers and insurance companies, in both its home market and also in Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary.
For Fabrick, whose remit currently extends to its home market of Italy as well as Spain and the UK, the acquisition is set to expand its client base above 800 and, importantly, introduce its open finance solutions to finAPI’s core markets, where the combined entities will offer “a wider range of centralised digital solutions”.
Paolo Zaccardi, CEO of Fabrick, says the deal will enable “the proliferation of the internationalisation strategy defined since our inception”, and cites the DACH region as “an area of strategic importance in allowing us to scale up our operations and seize the growing opportunities offered by the sector”.
“This operation is also a further step in expanding our offering, which now covers the entire value chain of open finance services,” he adds.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval of the German and Italian supervisory authorities.
It was previously announced in 2022 that UK-based open banking firm Yapily had signed an agreement with Schufa to acquire finAPI. However, Schufa has now confirmed with FinTech Futures that this earlier deal failed to acquire the necessary regulatory approvals by the 31 January 2023 deadline, stating that “a new buyer for the shares in FinAPI was therefore sought and has now been found in Fabrick”.
