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BBVA has acquired Holvi an online-only bank for entrepreneurs and SMBs based out of Finland. (“Holvi” means “vault” in Finnish.) Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but BBVA continues to try and position itself as a bank of the future through M&A.
For those of you unfamiliar with Holvi, it is one of a league of startups that has been building a range of services for businesses to run their own financial operations and their own banking online. Its products include an online sales platform, an invoicing platform and a cashflow tracker. It’s not clear how many customers Holvi currently has. BBVA says Holvi will remain a continuing and separate business, with operations in Finland, Austria and Germany with plans to expand to other markets to target what it estimates are some 40 million startups and other small businesses in Europe. (The company already had a license as an Authorised Payment Institution, and is currently regulated out of Finland.) BBVA is looking to companies like Holvi to help bring it new business and to build up alternative revenue streams.
