Just days after the UK officially left the EU, one of the country’s FinTech firms was granted a €20m loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Although, Azimo, the money transfer company, has already established a strong presence on the European continent with most of its technological development being made in the Polish city of Krakow.
The money from the EIB will be used to further expand its presence in Poland.
Michael Kent, co-founder and chairman of Azimo, told CNBC that the irony of a British business getting money from the EU days after Brexit happened was not lost on him.
Moreover, as the country and the trading bloc are yet to duke out what their relationship is going to be after the ongoing transition period ends in December, Kent ventured a guess that the next few months won’t be a pretty sight.
“We are stepping into the unknown,” Kent said. “It’s going to be messy. You can already hear from the rhetoric that it’s not going to be a friendly visiting rights and equal division of the money divorce.”
One of the biggest concerns for FinTech firms aiming to maintain a European presence past the divorce has been the question of their passporting rights. Those rights essentially mean that any company that has a licence to operate across any EU nation is free to do business in every other member state. The right is regulated in EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).
Yet, as the UK is pulling out, UK FinTech firms could end up losing the right, pending on what the trade agreement between the UK and the EU ends up looking right.
Many companies have already to moved to safeguard their business by setting up shop in another EU country. That including over 100 financial services firms as well as challenger banks Revolut and Starling Bank.
Azimo is no expectation. The FinTech company has secured a licence in the Netherlands to secure its passporting.
That being said, Kent added that he still believed the UK had “the best tech ecosystem arguably in the world.”
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