Friday, Getsafe, Bitpanda, and more | InsurTech and Fintech developments in the D-A-CH region, Q2 2021

The latest InsurTech news and developments from across the European German speaking regions from Frank Genheimer.

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What is new and what is hot in the FinTech and InsurTech space? Again, I have selected some interesting and groundbreaking news and information from the past few months from start-ups and incumbents in the insurance and financial service space in the German speaking countries (aka the “D-A-CH” region).

A lot has happened, so let’s start!

InsurTech

The Berlin-based digital insurer Friday is expanding into the French market¹. The startup, which belongs to the Swiss Bâloise Group, has hired two fintech veterans to copy the success from Germany in France.

German-based digital insurer Getsafe is aiming to raise an additional €50 million to €75 million in funding as part of its journey towards becoming a full-stack InsurTech².

One Insurance, the full-stack insurer within wefox Group, performs a re-branding. The InsurTech is now traded under the named wefox Insurance. The company, which was founded in 2018, was also able to book its first profits for 2020³.

The year 2021 will go down in history as the life insurer awakening. Life insurers – at least a few of them – have recognized that the problem is not the lack of ideas, but implementing them. In order to accelerate the digital transformation and product development two life insurer went on a shopping spree: The start-up Getsurance entered the German market in 2016. The bankruptcy followed in October last year. Nürnberger is now taking over the business of the digital broker⁴. HDI Lebensversicherung takes over the majority of Community Life. In the future, the InsurTech will work closely with the life insurer in product development, but will remain legally and operationally independent⁵. Certainly, these are not the last takeovers for this year.

FinTech                                       

After a new funding, Klarna is once again the most valuable fintech in Europe⁶. The payment service provider Klarna from Stockholm has raised 1 billion dollars in a new financing round – this is one of the largest funding rounds that have ever taken place in Europe. According to Klarna, this triples the valuation to 31 billion dollars, making it again the most valuable FinTech in Europe.

Even before the official start, the Berlin-based FinTech Alice received around 1 million euros as start-up capital⁷. The app aims to help women with financial decisions and to be “intelligent enough” to react to changes in life such as motherhood, break-off or the like. Alice offers video coaching and later also ETF investment products. Behind the startup is an experienced team of founders and well-known business angels such as Verena Pausder and Lea-Sophie Cramer.

Allianz X, the digital investment unit of the Allianz Group, invested into FinTechs in Canada⁸ and China⁹. Both investments can be seen in the context of the current macroeconomic challenges and the increasing importance of integrated life insurance and investment solutions – I call this FinSurTech.

Neobroker Bitpanda raises $170M at a $1.2B valuation to take its trading platform beyond crypto¹⁰. In addition, this makes Bitpanda the first unicorn in Austria.

Viac, a pioneer in Switzerland, had about three years ago the idea to make the pension market attractive for young target groups. Earlier this year, they have big news: Viac has just reached the mark of 1 billion Swiss francs in managed pension assets with about 44,000 customers¹¹.

What’s next?

The European Insurance and Occupational Pension Authority (EIOPA) launched a public consultation focused on access to and sharing of insurance-related data¹². It becomes clear that after Open Banking (via PSD2), it is now the turn for Open Insurance, together paving the way to the long-term goal of Open Finance in the European Union.

In recent years, the European Commission has supported digitization and innovation in the financial sector through their policies. The initiatives set out in the FinTech Action Plan (2018) specifically aimed to support the expansion of innovative services and businesses across the European Union. The Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2) should also be seen in this context. EIOPA has now launched this public consultation. EIOPA defines “Open Insurance” as access to and the transfer of insurance-related data via APIs.

In a nutshell, we are talking here about a “PSD2”-kind regulation for insurance companies.

The consultation is based on a discussion paper, which explores questions on whether and how far insurance value chains should be ‘opened’ up by the sharing of insurance-related and specific policyholder data amongst insurance and non-insurance firms, to protect policyholder rights and to allow for innovation in products and services.

All mentioned sources are listed below. All thoughts and opinions are my own. All information without any liability. No claim to completeness.

Sources

¹ https://www.finews.ch/news/versicherungen/45365-frankreich-baloise-friday-jehan-de-castet-maud-mariani

² https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/digital-insurer-getsafe-seeks-up-to-8364-75m-as-it-aims-for-full-stack-status-63082891

³ https://www.presseportal-schweiz.ch/pressemeldungen/one-erreicht-profitabilitaet-und-firmiert-sofort-als-wefox-insurance

⁴ https://versicherungswirtschaft-heute.de/unternehmen-und-management/2021-01-24/nuernberger-kauft-getsurance/

⁵ https://versicherungswirtschaft-heute.de/unternehmen-und-management/2021-01-13/hdi-leben-uebernimmt-mehrheit-an-community-life/

⁶ https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/zahlmeister-klarna-sammelt-weitere-milliarde-ein-a-fa9e4462-dd34-419d-995c-c558bbc1dc81

⁷ https://financefwd.com/de/fintech-alice-app-pausder-cramer/

⁸ https://versicherungswirtschaft-heute.de/unternehmen-und-management/2021-02-11/allianz-investiert-345-millionen-euro-in-kanadisches-fintech-purpose-financial/

⁹ https://versicherungswirtschaft-heute.de/unternehmen-und-management/2021-03-09/allianz-x-investiert-75-mio-us-dollar-in-chinesisches-fintech-welab/

¹⁰ https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/15/neobroker-bitpanda-raises-170m-at-a-1-2b-valuation-to-take-its-trading-platform-beyond-crypto/

¹¹ https://www.moneytoday.ch/news/fintech-viac-unterstreicht-die-rolle-des-taktgebers-im-markt-der-digitalen-vorsorge-mit-konkreten-za/

¹² https://www.eiopa.europa.eu/content/eiopa-consults-open-insurance_en