Peer to peer lender Zopa has established a development center in Barcelona, Spain. The new tech hub is said to initially focus on building the platform that will launch the next generation digital bank. This will include deposit systems, credit card processing, payment gateways and more. Pretty much everything you need to create a new bank minus the bricks and mortar. In recent years, Barcelona has gained in prominence for being the entrepreneurial center of Spain. Setting up shop in Barcelona establishes a European foothold from which to further expand their services across Europe. This is not to mention the quality of life and fabulous weather that Barcelona may claim.
Zopa’s Chief Technology Officer, Ronen Benchetrit, said that as one of the worlds very first Fintech businesses, the have great pride in their tech and product delivery.
“Our mission at Zopa is to make money simple and fair, and our developers get the opportunity to build solutions to real world problems, whilst using the latest technology to deliver products in an agile manner. Barcelona has an exciting and fast growing tech scene and is already home to some of the world’s best tech talent. It also draws the best talent from all over the world, attracted by its vibrant culture.”
Didier Baclin, Head of Bank Build at Zopa, said the Barcelona operation will give them access to some of the best software engineers in the world. This will allow them to accelerate the development infrastructure to launch the challenger bank.
The new hub will sit alongside Zopa’s growing London Bridge based development teams. Developers working on the bank technology infrastructure will be split between London and Barcelona. Zopa said they remained focused on UK customers but clearly they have larger aspirations.