Groupe BPCE, the French banking group, has inked a deal to acquire Fidor Bank, the German digital bank and FinTech pioneer, in an effort to speed up the rollout of its digital strategy.
The deal, which was announced on Thursday (July 28), is for an undisclosed sum. BPCE said it was drawn to Fidor because it offers a unique proposition by melding an innovative customer experience with an open organization and architecture. Fidor relies heavily on the involvement of the 350,000 members of its community, and its open organization and architecture fosters flexibility and agility, BPCE said. The company pointed to Fidor Operating System, which is its proprietary digital banking platform that allows fast and easy functionality, as one of the attributes it liked.
“This operation constitutes a key step in the acceleration of the digital transformation of our group. It further demonstrates our commitment to innovation, to develop a customer-centric approach enabled by a digital banking technology and to be more involved in digital and mobile banking field. We are very proud and happy to welcome Fidor’s teams, community and clients within Groupe BPCE,” said François Pérol, chairman of theGroupe BPCE management board, in a press release announcing the deal.
As part of the acquisition, Matthias Kröner, founder of Fidor, will remain a shareholder of Fidor Group and continue as CEO. He will lead the development and business operations with the existing management team. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year and is subject to customary regulatory approval from the European Central Bank and the BaFin and German authorities.
Fidor was founded in 2009, one of the first German FinTech companies, and now has 120,000 customers.
[Source:- PYMNTS]
