Powens in France and Unnax in Spain, two of Europe’s most prominent Open Finance fintech leaders, announce their official agreement to join forces and create a European Open Finance champion
“Our vision, as a company, is to make access to financial solutions much more efficient and inclusive. By combining our respective strengths and technologies, Powens will allow us to make our vision a reality.”
A perfect pairing of two Open Finance leaders
The decision to welcome Unnax into the Powens family was an easy one: a strategic opportunity to strengthen Open Finance leadership in Europe and beyond through combining two innovative fintechs with strong positions in Spain and France, and also to extend their joint reach into the fast-growing and rapidly-evolving Latin American market.
The combination is fuelled in large part by PSG Equity, a leading growth equity firm partnering with software and technology-enabled services companies to help accelerate their growth and build scale across Europe and the US. PSG Equity invested in Powens in 2022 and will make a further investment in Unnax, which is expected to close in 2023 – subject to regulatory approval – to bring Unnax and Powens together into one group.
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“PSG Equity invested in Powens in 2022 to back one of France’s pioneers of Open Finance, with a vision to create a European leader with scale and drive innovation in the financial services industry. We are excited to make a further investment in Unnax, one of Spain’s local champions in Open Finance, and bring them into the Powens group to accelerate our vision and deliver exceptional Open Finance products across Europe,” says Romain Railhac, Managing Director at PSG Equity.
For Powens, this is a natural next step in its journey to expand their leading Open Finance services across European borders, where they already provide connectivity to 11 European countries via one API. Further, by both tapping into Unnax’s regulatory license as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) and leveraging its expertise in digital payments, coming together will fuel Powens’ ability to create the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative array of Open Finance products and services in the market to date, including PSD2 and beyond-PSD2 financial data, data analytics and categorization, payment initiation, electronic money wallets, IBANs, credit checking, and onboarding services.
“I am thrilled that Unnax has decided to join the Powens family. We have a unique opportunity ahead of us to push the boundaries of the Open Finance revolution together and deliver the best combination of innovative technologies and best-in-class services in Europe. Unnax shares our same entrepreneurial DNA, passion for creating industry-leading Open Finance products and solutions, and forward-thinking vision for the future, and the combination allows us to reinforce our position as one of Europe’s definitive independent Open Finance champions,” says Bertrand Jeannet Powens CEO.
Unnax, one of Spain and Latin America’s leading Open Finance trailblazers
As one of Spain’s fintech leaders and a licensed Electronic Money Institution (EMI), Unnax has pushed the boundaries of Open Finance in Spain and Latin America via innovative technology solutions that harness the power of banking infrastructure, simplify payments, and streamline the access to financial data—all through a single API. In 2022, Unnax’s technology platform supported over 50 customers in delivering digital financial services products with over 43 million API calls and approximately €1.3 billion payments processed in 2022.
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“As we evolve in a digital economy that requires greater agility and flexibility in financial products and services, Unnax has been at the forefront of developing innovative products that go beyond what the traditional banking system can offer. Joining forces with Powens will allow us to accelerate our innovation, strengthen our product development for existing customers in Spain and Latin America, and jointly offer the most innovative Open Finance products across Europe and Latin America,” says Julián Díaz-Santos, Unnax Co-Founder and Co-CEO.
Even more, its presence in Latin America, which began with the company’s launch in Mexico in 2021, has allowed Unnax to bring Open Finance to the rapidly growing Latin American market and democratize access to new kinds of financial services, and promote financial inclusion for the under banked. As proof of the potential of Open Finance in Mexico, Unnax now connects the banking and non-banking data of over 1 million people every month.
Jordi Peréz, Unnax Co-Founder and Co-CEO adds: “Our vision, as a company, is to make access to financial solutions much more efficient and inclusive. By combining our respective strengths and technologies, Powens will allow us to make our vision a reality.”
This is just the beginning…
Together, Powens and Unnax will serve over 260 trusted and valued customers in Europe and Latin America, with Open Finance technology solutions that cover 12 countries with over 1.2 billion API calls and over €1.3 billion in payments processed in 2022. The combined group will have over 180 employees based out of offices in Paris, Barcelona and Mexico City.
There will be more news to share in the coming months as we continue to work on this partnership and deliver new and innovative services to propel the Open Finance revolution into the future.
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