BBVA Spain fintech Solarisbank raises 190 million buys Contis - The' fintech ' Solarisbank, owned by BBVA, raises 190 million to buy Contis and create a giant of banking services for companies.

Solarisbank has closed a series D financing round of 190 million euros that values the company at 1,400 million euros. This fintech, owned by BBVA since 2018, is a platform dedicated to providing banking services to other companies, which in the sector is known as Banking as a Service (BaaS).

Now, the entity returns to support Solarisbank, in this case in this fourth round of funding, which also involved Pathway Capital Management, CNP (Groupe Frère), and Ilavska Vuillermoz Capital, and other investors prior as Yabeo Capital, Vulcan Capital and HV Capital.

BBVA Spain fintech Solarisbank raises 190 million buys Contis

The objective is to finance the purchase of the company specialized in payment services Contis. With this operation, Solarisbank wants to consolidate its position as a giant in the integrated banking services sector for companies.

Recently, the company has started operating in France, Italy and Spain, where it will be able to offer domestic ibans to its customers.

BBVA Spain fintech Solarisbank raises 190 million buys Contis

“Over the past 12 months, our passionate team has once again met key milestones on our ambitious expansion roadmap. The funding round is the result of their extraordinary work and will provide an additional boost to our vision of creating a world where financial services are perfectly synchronized with life,” says Roland Folz, CEO of Solarisbank.

"Contis is a true fintech pioneer and has been awarded numerous times for its ability to develop disruptive, secure and reliable technologies in the field of payment services. After 3 years growing at one of the highest rates in Europe, this movement will allow us to take our speed to another level. Solarisbank and Contis share the same vision and values and together we will spearhead the global rise of embedded finance,” according to Peter Cox, CEO and founder of the Contis Group.

BBVA Spain fintech Solarisbank raises 190 million buys Contis

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The government will relax the limits of individuals for investment in crowdfunding platforms: it will allow to invest 1,000 euros or 5% of the wealth

The new draft law for the promotion of business creation and growth, which has been called the Create and Grow Law, includes measures that are both focused on the creation and the growth and financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. This text, which will now be presented for public consultation, includes a part that will amend the corporate finance law passed in 2015.

At that time, with the tap of credit closed by the banks, the bases for the operation of crowdfunding and crowdfunding equity platforms were set at a time of financial crisis where companies were looking for alternatives for liquidity in a system heavily dependent on bank financing.

Now, it is time to transpose the new European regulation and adapt the regulations to the current reality. Changes will include a easing of limits on the amount that can be invested in projects on these platforms.

The 2015 law established that no non-accredited investor could invest more than 3,000 euros per project. Now, this limit is relaxed and extended to a range that will vary between 1,000 euros and 5% of the investor's wealth. A more "flexible" limit than the existing one, according to sources of the ministry, where it seeks to reconcile the protection of the investor with his patrimony.

In this sense, there will be a warning about the risk of the investment. It should be borne in mind that this type of investment involves high risk and low liquidity if you need to recover the money invested.

In this regulatory change it also seeks to facilitate crowdfunding platforms that have the necessary permits to operate in Spain can do so in the rest of the EU territory. These platforms add business projects where individuals can invest in return for future profitability and must have the approval of the CNMV meeting capital and organizational requirements. It is important to remember that this future return offered by the investments is not guaranteed and that it is an investment with a high risk.

In the draft bill, in addition to the financing of companies, a block is included relating to the acceleration in the creation of companies and another part focused on business promotion. For it to enter into force, it must be approved again by the Council of Ministers after public consultation, something that is expected by the end of this year or beginning of next, as well as by the Parliament, a procedure that sources of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation expect by the end of 2022.

In this first part to accelerate the creation of companies in Spain, a reduction of the capital necessary to create a limited liability company is included. In this way, you can create a company of these characteristics from one euro. Sources from the ministry point out that they have analyzed laws of other countries and seek that capital is not a limitation in the creation of companies.

The other big block of the law is the pursuit of business promotion trying to avoid late payment. The aim is for Spanish companies to change their culture towards "prompt payment".

In this sense, an observatory of late payments in Spain will be created for the analysis of the situation. In addition, some laws will be amended with the aim that companies that do not pay on time will be penalized in their relations with the administration.

In this way, the new regulation will provide that companies that are late in their payments are not eligible for public subsidies and that public contracts penalize those companies that delay payments to their subcontractors.

The regulation also hopes to speed up payments by encouraging e-invoicing. To do this, the use of electronic invoicing among SMEs will be promoted and, with the aim that this is not a cost, will be included in the subsidized services in the digital toolkit, the plan financed with 3,000 million euros from the European funds for the digitalization of SMEs.