UK embedded finance provider Weavr lands EMI licence in Malta
Weavr, a UK-based Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions provider, has obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the financial regulator in Malta and is now set to deliver “the most comprehensive domiciled IBAN offering in Europe”.
MFSA grants Weavr EMI licence in Malta
The Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is said to have awarded the licence following an “extensive review” of Weavr’s operating model, which the vendor claims is “embeddable by design”.
The subsequent development of Weavr’s IBAN offering will seek to support B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses with “a range of financial products that span cards, account and fund transfer networks globally”.
Weavr says it will lean into its partnership with Visa, which has been in motion since June last year, to deliver “several of these financial products”.
Weavr CEO Alex Mifsud, who co-founded the embedded finance provider in 2018, says the licence will enable B2B SaaS businesses to adopt embedded finance with “unprecedented ease” in the pursuit of delivering “transformative software experiences for a multitude of business critical jobs”, including accounting, billing, project management and HR management.
“In this new era when regulators across Europe are increasingly addressing the risks associated with BaaS, we are honoured to be among the first organisations awarded a financial licence specifically to operate a safer model for embedded finance,” he continues.
This comment taps into the continued scrutiny of the BaaS model by regulators worldwide, with specific attention to financial institutions’ ability to conduct effective oversight over the multitude of fintechs and embedded financial products.
However, Weavr’s statement on the licencing goes on to claim that its operating model has been “designed differently, addressing these legitimate concerns of regulators from the ground up”.
