Germany-based Fintech firms Raisin and Deposit Solutions have reportedly decided to merge their operations in order to establish a new company in the business-to-consumer or B2C savings sector.
Deposit Solutions currently operates deposit marketplaces for more than 150 partners, such as large institutions including Deutsche Bank, and links them up with deposit-taking banking platforms from across Europe. Meanwhile, Raisin’s marketplace provides consumers simple or convenient access to competitive deposit products from different European markets.
Together, the companies will be working with around 400 banking platforms and financial services providers from over 30 countries. The former competitors have decided to split executive responsibilities and will employ 500 workers at their Berlin offices.
Given the fairly large European deposit market, valued at around €20 trillion, the combined business entity, called Raisin DS, has considerable growth potential in its local market. Additionally, the $17 trillion US market, which both Fintechs have now entered, represents yet another key growth area.
Both Fintechs are backed by prominent investors such as Goldman Sachs and PayPal (Raisin), and Deutsche Bank and Peter Thiel (Deposit Solutions), among several others. The two companies have secured a total of €300 million in private investments.
Dr. Tim Sievers, CEO and Founder at Deposit Solutions, stated:
“We have been working on this merger for a long time and I am happy and proud that we were able to turn competitors into allies. With joint forces, we are going to increase our market coverage in Europe, build a significant presence in the US, and pursue our mission to establish Open Banking as the industry standard in the global deposits business.”
As covered recently, Berlin-headquartered Raisin has officially launched its operations in the US by teaming up with its first partner bank.
MapleMark Bank has reportedly become the first US-based banking institution to integrate Raisin’s Savings-as-a-Service software on its digital platform. By leveraging the technology, MapleMark customers are able to look at ladder, liquidity, and market-linked term deposit products online. They can also check out available terms and yields, while being able to open up their preferred account with a few clicks.
Raisin had first confirmed its plans to expand operations in US markets during mid-2019. The company had appointed its US CEO Paul Knodel from American Fintech Wealthfront’s management team.
