Having nabbed a Swedish banking licence, neobank Northmill is gearing up to add saving accounts, cards and payments transfer to its existing customer offering in the near future.
The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority’s, or Finansinspektionen, thumbs up means the company can take its next “natural” step, according to Margareta Lindahl, chairwoman of the board at Northmill. “This is a natural part of Northmill’s continuous journey and another important step in our mission to simplify people’s financial lives through technology and innovation,” she said. “We believe this enhances our opportunity to continue to develop and offer great products to customers all around Europe.”
However, Lindahl also highlighted that the “banking license means a great responsibility” and said it was “gratifying to see that Sweden and its authorities foster innovation.”
Nortmill currently has attracted 200,000 users through its credit and insurance offerings. The Stockholm-headquartered scaleup launched a new insurance service in August.
When the banking and financing operations begin, Northmill must have an initial capital of a minimum of €5m and must at all times have a capital base of no less than that.
Sweden has, together with Germany and France, been playing catch-up with UK in terms of FinTech investments since 2014. The country has annually attracted between 2.8% and 10.1% of the total investments going into Europe between 2014 and the first six months of 2019, according to FinTech Global’s research.
Several European innovative hotbeds are looking to leverage the UK’s exodus from the EU to make themselves the continent’s leading FinTech centre. For instance, Lithuania has been able to attract over UK 100 financial companies to seek banking licences as they prepare for Brexit.
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