Last Updated on: 21st November 2023, 10:17 pm
Based out of Paris and China’s Shenzhen, the new fintech startup EasyEuro is making waves in the industry by offering digital banking services for SME traders. It will enable them to trade across borders between Europe and Asia without hassle, making life so much easier for so many who trade in this way.
Creating what’s called a ‘Neobank’, which is a bank that’s ran 100% digitally, they’ve already secured USD $4 million in a pre-funding round. This will be used to kickstart the company’s growth in things like product development, recruiting the right mix of talent, and being able to expand in the market.
There’s a good reason they are targeting both China and Europe together – they are the largest trading partners in the world. Just look at the import and export volume between China and Europe – from SME businesses it reached $323 billion in 2018, across goods such as textiles, furniture, toys, wine, food, cosmetics and more. Also, online eCommerce via heavyweights such as Amazon, Shopify and France’s CDiscount reach over $100 billion in the same year. However with these SME businesses, that are mostly located across up to a dozen European countries, they don’t have the ability to easily receive and disburse payments in the currency they’d like to. Plus, Chinese SMEs also have a big problem with trying to conform to all the ins and outs of European banking practices.
That’s where EasyEuro comes in. The fintech company aims to provide all their SME clients with a personal digital mobile wallet, complete with a multi-currency bank account where they can send and receive cross-border payments in the currency they choose. Clients using it can also apply for a Mastercard, making things even easier still, as it can be linked with their EasyEuro account for worldwide usage.
In addition, the digital wallet supports so many different payment options such as Visa, MasterCard, WeChatPay, Alipay and UnionPay. This gives customers more choice at their fingertips, plus gives them quick and easy access as well as favorable exchange rates that can be protected during trading to avoid losses.
It’s so transparent too, with EasyEuro building a suite of open APIs for their strategic payment partners like Geoswift and SwiftPass, which will enable key functions such as collect, convert, remit and pay.
Back in September 2018 they completed seed funding of CNY ¥5 million, and since that time have gone on to raise $4 million in 2019. That current round of funding was led by Shanghai’s Ally Capital, followed by seed investors SwiftPass, Geoswift, Huashan Capital and Unity Assets.
After such a promising start, shown by the strong interest and healthy funding, we look forward to seeing what this bold new fintech venture will bring for SME traders this year.
