Citadele Bank is launching a partnership with Europe's most advanced lending platform, Fellow Finance, which brings together individuals, businesses and investors, and German financial technology (FinTech) company CrossLend that takes care of the securitization of the loan investments. Citadele is the first bank in the Baltic states, and one of the first in Europe, to issue consumer loans through a peer-to-peer lending platform.
Citadele Bank will make investments utilising Fellow Finance’s lending platform, headquartered in Finland, which provides consumer and SME loans in the Nordic countries and Central Europe. The digital debt marketplace CrossLend is providing its innovative securitisation solution to transform the platform’s loans into securities held by Citadele. The initial investment is 15 million euro. International co-operation will enable Citadele to expand its range of services, offering new products in an efficient and modern way – teaming with innovative FinTech companies.
Vladislavs Mironovs, member of the Management Board of Citadele Bank, says: “The difference between universal banks and innovative frontrunners is their ability to adapt to customer needs, creating best-in-class solutions internally or partnering with leading FinTech companies. Co-operating with CrossLend and Fellow Finance is a new way for Citadele to expand its business and learn from international innovations. This newly established partnership will allow Citadele to reach new consumer and corporate lending markets while offering modern financial services internationally.”
Jouni Hintikka, CEO of Fellow Finance: “Using its Fellow Finance investment account, Citadele will be able to diversify its investments easily and cost-efficiently. This is a great example of how banks do not have to carry out costly operations themselves but can effectively enter markets through lending platforms. Citadele's investment will strengthen our ambition to maintain a platform that provides access to consumer and SME loans in the Nordic countries and Central Europe.”
Oliver Schimek, CEO and Founder at CrossLend: “We are a partner for banks to securitise their investments in loans via our digital debt marketplace. Our securitisation set-up, together with the standardised presentation of loan data on our marketplace, makes investment into P2P-originated loans easy, as well as time and cost efficient.”
About Citadele Bank
Citadele’s mission is to modernise the banking sector and offer more opportunities to individuals and businesses throughout the Baltic. We aim to become the Baltic banking champions.
Alongside classic banking services, Citadele offers its clients a range of services based on next-generation financial technology, including its modern app, contactless payments and instant payments. We were the first in the Baltic launching an opportunity to open an account with a selfie and using the Bank of Latvia’s Instant Link registry to pay to mobile numbers.
Citadele is the third largest bank in Latvia by number of clients, and second by number of business clients. The Citadele group is managed from Latvia. Its subsidiaries and branches operate in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
About Fellow Finance
Fellow Finance is a Finnish FinTech company founded in 2013. The company offers a lending platform where both individuals and companies can obtain financing for their needs. Fellow Finance offers investors an opportunity to easily invest in consumer and business loans in five different European markets and for borrowers to find the best offers from the platform investors for their financing needs. Fellow Finance Plc is regulated by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Finland as an Authorised Payment Institution. Fellow Finance Plc is listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.
Read more at www.fellowfinance.com.
About CrossLend
CrossLend is a digital debt marketplace with a mission to make the world’s lending and investment ecosystem more efficient, transparent and profitable. By means of an innovative securitisation solution, CrossLend seamlessly connects originator supply with institutional investor demand, creating beneficial opportunities for both. With lenders empowered to lend more and investors able to deploy their capital more efficiently, liquidity is available to flow where it is needed: a win-win situation for all. CrossLend is backed by an array of prestigious equity investors from Europe and the U.S., including Santander InnoVentures, Lakestar, CME Ventures, Earlybird, ABN AMRO’s Digital Impact Fund, solaris Bank, finleap and the Luxembourg Future Fund (EIF and SNCI). CrossLend is working to create a secondary market which, together with its primary market, will further strengthen its efforts to make the Capital Markets Union a reality.
More info: www.crosslend.com.