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Image Credit: bunq

After making its entry into Spain with Spanish IBANs, Amsterdam-based challenger bank bunq has now collaborated with payments platform Paysafe to offer customers access to cash services. 

 That means, from now onwards customers who use cash on a day-to-day basis will be able to add cash into their bunq account via Paysafecash.

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About Paysafe

Based out of London, Paysafe is a global payments provider offering a range of payment solutions for businesses and consumers across 70 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.

The company’s solutions are geared toward mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics, and the convergence between brick-and-mortar and online payments.

The UK company has 20 years of online payment experience, an annualised transactional volume of $92B (approx €78.4B) in 2020, and approximately 3,400 employees located in 12+ global locations.

Paysafe’s original product, paysafecard, uses a 16-digit PIN and enables customers to shop online without using an account or credit card, protecting their confidential financial information. 

In 2018, the paysafecard team developed Paysafecash allowing customers to shop online first and then pay securely for their purchases with cash at convenient, nearby payment points. In 2020, paysafecard and Paysafecash reached a transaction volume of more than $4.6B.

This year, Paysafe has been on an acquisition spree. It acquired Berlin-based via fintech to boosts Its alternative banking and payment solutions, US-based digital payment platform SafetyPay for $441M, and PagoEfectivo, a Peruvian alternative payments (APM) platform. 

The Partnership

The company will take this partnership to 21 European countries and it will further help in facilitating cash deposits directly via the bunq mobile app. The process involves customers to first select Paysafecash as the top up method in the bunq app and choose the amount of cash to deposit into the account and then generate a unique barcode for the transaction.

After that, customers can visit their nearby payment point and scan the barcode at the point of sales terminal and then make a cash payment. The cash deposited will reflect on the bunq balance within a few minutes.

The company mentions that Paysafecash is available for use at around 190,000 payment points in 29 countries (including the US and Canada).

Speaking on the development, Ali Niknam, founder and CEO of bunq, says, “bunq was founded to challenge what banking is and can do. By putting our users first we have created a bank that is super focused on making life easy in a sustainable way. Teaming up with Paysafe means bunq users in even more European countries now have a safe and easy way to add cash to their bunq accounts.”

About bunq

European challenger bank bunq was founded in 2012 by Ali Niknam. The entrepreneur invested €98.7M of his own money initially into developing bunq. Earlier this year, in July, the company raised €193M in a funding round led by Pollen Street Capital, at a valuation of €1.6B. Ali Niknam, bunq founder, also participated in the investment round.

The challenger bank also announced the acquisition of Capitalflow Group, a privately held Irish lending company with strong ties to the Irish community. It’s worth noting, Capitalflow Group was previously owned by Pollen Street Capital. Reportedly, bunq has acquired the Irish company for nearly €141M.

bunq also became profitable for the first time in the month of July after securing its biggest ever funding. bunq is currently available in 29 European markets: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Spain.