The European challenger bank market is about to get more crowded as YAPEAL secured a FinTech banking licence from FINMA, Switzerland’s independent financial markets regulator.
The Zurich-based digital bank is the first company in Switzerland to receive a FinTech banking license after the licence was introduced in 2019.
“YAPEAL is very pleased to have reached this fundamentally important milestone,” said Andy Waar, co-founder and chief marketing officer at YAPEAL, in a statement. “We are working with high intensity to achieve market entry.”
The new type of licence enables the neobank to accept public deposits of up to 100m Swiss Francs, provided these are not invested and no interest is paid on them. Another requirement to get a licence is that the organisation is a limited company or has unlimited partners or that it is a limited liability company registered in Switzerland.
Armed with the new licence, YAPEAL plans to challenge the traditional retail banking sector with personalised accounts tailored to individual clients and it might also introduce a new type of accounts for children or a robo-advisory service that balances income, fixed household costs and a client’s desire for different goods, according to swissinfo.ch.
