RAIFFEISEN BANK INTERNATIONAL AG 
It has been slightly more than a year since the first case of COVID-19 was identified in China. During this challenging year, new restrictions were imposed on our daily life, which significantly transformed our way of working and social interacting.
While life seemed to be stopped during the lockdown with only the daily cases of COVID-19 infections being on the rise, financial technology gained momentum. The need for digital solutions in e-commerce, trading and banking fostered innovation in the financial sector in all parts of the world, including CEE.
Despite these challenging times, the global pandemic and lockdown, Elevator Ventures invested in two promising fintech start-ups contributing to growth and innovation, which we would like to introduce.
Twisto: Revolution in commerce - buy now, pay later
Headquartered in the Czech Republic, Twisto is a 'buy now, pay later' (BNPL) specialist that has leveraged regional online shopping trends to introduce and popularize the BNPL payment solution. In a region where cash on delivery (COD) was until recently the most popular form of payment for online goods, Twisto has established itself as the simplest way to pay in e-shops, and has been used by more than 1.6 million customers to date. The Twisto App, the company's main product, is used by more than 170,000 customers today. The account is a credit-enabled digital wallet for omni-channel shopping, which includes both a physical and virtual payment card sponsored by MasterCard, mobile payments (Apple Pay and Google Pay), the advanced bill and invoice payment tool Snap, and a payment splitting feature called Split. With Twisto, customers enjoy the full freedom to pay their way for daily shopping with easy 1-tap instalments and payment deferral options.
We were impressed by the ease of Twisto's solution for customers to manage daily payments and finances. Their strong traction in Central Europe proves they serve a real customer demand in this region. We are looking forward to supporting Twisto in their ambition to bring their solution to more markets in continental Europe.
Finqware: Building financial infrastructures - more integrated, yet more open
Finqware is a Romanian technology company with the aim of putting Open Banking at work. Solving the complexities of Open Banking through its cloud multi-banking data infrastructure, the company aims to be a platform for innovation in Fintech with focus on CEE.
The company was internationally recognized for its technology with awards and recognitions, including a Seal of Excellence from the European Commission.
The company got a high profile in May 2020, when it connected the main banks in Croatia to Open Banking for the first time, proving the functionalities and the value creation potential in this market in a project with OTP Banka. Finqware achieved 90% market coverage in Croatia in only six weeks of implementation time (all done remotely in lockdown conditions).
Finqware intends to speed up its market expansion in the CEE region, addressing the growing needs of Open Banking data consumption of banks and other financial players. The company is focusing on product development to grow its value creation capabilities and better serve all players that want to use open banking in their budgeting, credit risk, accounting or payment processes.
Our investment in Finqware is fully in line with our goal to support regional CEE Fintechs to grow exponentially, leveraging our financial and knowledge support. With its top-notch Open Banking technology and its proven track record of successful customer projects, Finqware is well positioned to become one of the European Open Banking leaders in the years to come.
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Raiffeisen Bank International AG published this content on 28 January 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 28 January 2021 17:19:00 UTC.
