Berlin Fintech company builder FinLeap is expanding to Switzerland

Berlin/Zurich - The Berlin-based Fintech company builder FinLeap is entering the Swiss financial market. FinLeap is the first German Fintech company builder to gain a foothold in Switzerland to increase the pressure on local banks and financial institutions.Since the start of FinLeap at the end of 2014, the company builder has established six Fintech companies in various international markets. The experienced serial founders are operating according to a proven principle: “We bring together experts from the financial community, entrepreneurs and our strong tech team”, comments FinLeap partner Ramin Niroumand.The company’s projects in Switzerland will be supported by someone who is no stranger to the industry: Marc P. Bernegger, the web entrepreneur and Fintech investor will be representing FinLeap in Switzerland and focus on laying the groundwork. “Swiss financial institutions have been considered as innovators in banking for decades, but in recent years, they have not always managed to keep up with technological advances”, says Marc P. Bernegger, who will be Senior Advisor & Ambassador Switzerland for FinLeap. For some players even the development of online banking has been hard to adopt. The subsequent logical step of providing mobile offerings has put too much strain on the structures of some banking houses.  

Swiss financial institutions have been considered as innovators in banking for decades, but in recent years, they have not always managed to keep up with technological advances

Marc P. Bernegger, Senior Advisor & Ambassador Switzerland FinLeap

“It’s not just 18-year-olds who have new expectations regarding their financial institutions. Bank customers of all ages have recognized that many financial products are overpriced or simply not offered competitively”, says Marc P. Bernegger. Most recently, financial investment customers have started to turn their back on banks: “The better informed a group of investors, the higher the risk of losing them to competitors which are offering better conditions.”  

A company from FinLeap’s incubator specializing in the investment business is Savedo. It already manages 100 million Euros paid in by investors. Based on a simple and transparent model, they have succeeded in gaining the trust of wealthy investors who are on average older than 50.  

Banks are experiencing a run on their core business. But, our 'revolutionary troops' are acting collaboratively as well. We are not looking for enemies, but preferably for the best solutions for our customers.

Ramin Niroumand, Co-Founder, Managing Director and Partner of FinLeap

FinLeap, however, does not only consider itself as a competitor to banks. “Banks are experiencing a run on their core business. But, our 'revolutionary troops' are acting collaboratively as well. We are not looking for enemies, but preferably for the best solutions for our customers,” Ramin Niroumand adds. A successful example is FinReach, a company already collaborating with several banks in Germany.

The service provided by FinReach enables account switching within a few minutes. The FinReach solution automatically identifies all debit receivers, incoming payments and standing orders enabling bank customers to transfer all relevant transactions to the new account within one online workflow. As a result, FinReach increases the probability for banks to attract new clients. For the banks, another benefit of FinReach is, that it offers a plug-and-play solution which does not require integration into the bank's core system.

About Marc P. Bernegger

At the age of 20 Marc P. Bernegger founded his first digital enterprise. He sold the party platform usgang.ch to Axel Springer and subsequently co-founded the event online management software Amiando. The company was awarded Global Technology Pioneer status by the World Economic Forum in 2010 and sold to XING the same year.

Since 2010, Marc P. Bernegger has consistently reinforced his focus on fintech companies. He was a partner of the listed investment company Next Generation Finance Invest which currently operates under the company name Ayondo Holding, and Venture Partner of Orange Growth Capital as well as co-founder of Finance 2.0 and other enterprises. He holds several supervisory board positions and advisory roles and has invested in various startups. Marc P. Bernegger was elected one of the “100 most successful Swiss under the age of 40“ by “Bilanz” magazine.

About FinLeap:

FinLeap is a company builder specialized in the financial services industry and based in Berlin. The company’s objective is the support of startups in establishing sustainable, customer-centric and technology-driven businesses. FinLeap provides entrepreneurs with 0.5 - 5 million euros in seed funding and access to a strong network of investors. Startups benefit from access to top talent, an integrated development platform, best practice processes and extensive expertise in the financial services sector. So far, the Fintech ventures Savedo, Valendo, BillFront, FinReach and Clark have been launched with the help of FinLeap.

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