“Is Qonto a real bank?” is one of the top suggested questions in Google searches about the French fintech startup. The answer is no, but it could change: Qonto has filed for a banking license in France, CEO Alexandre Prot revealed.
Qonto, which targets European freelancers and SMBs, currently operates with a payment institution license it obtained in 2018, and which already enabled it to introduce a form of buy now, pay later (BNPL). But a credit institution license would let it offer broader lending, savings, and investment options to its target customers.
Since its current license is valid across the EU, Qonto has already been able to expand into several European markets, and recently reached the milestone of 600,000 customers. But lacking a credit license is a hindrance for its goal to reach 2 million customers by 2030.
While offering a more comprehensive solution seems like a natural move to compete with incumbent banks, obtaining a license and rolling out credit is not easy. That explains why Qonto’s SMB fintech competitors have approached this issue in different ways, and why Qonto isn’t exactly playing catch-up.
Memo Bank was founded as a bank from the outset, and offers lending to SMBs, but that makes it an outlier. Finom operates with an electronic money institution (EMI) license, but it only just started testing the kind of lending that this regulatory middle ground allows. Revolut has a full Lithuanian license, but other than BNPL, it has yet to roll out credit options to businesses — although it plans to do so this year.
Still, the marketing power of well-funded competitors that operate both in B2C and B2B may have been a sign that Qonto needed to accelerate, especially as Revolut recently loudly ann …