Qonto, a French commercial banking start-up, started on a small scale in 2017 with the goal of facilitating the banking operations of self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In a short five years, he reached the unicorn position with a valuation of $ 5 billion (€ 4.4 billion) and became the European champion.
With offices in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, the company is strengthening its presence in Berlin and announced an agreement on Friday to acquire German fintech giant Penta. It will be closed within a few weeks.
Qonto’s long-term goal is to become the financial solution of choice for 1 million European SMEs and freelancers by 2025.
Euronews Next talks with Qonto co-founder and CEO Alexandre Prot about how he plans to lead the European fintech market, the role of cryptocurrencies, and the future of challenging banks. Did.
Prot’s main problems with traditional banking services are that the app isn’t very easy to use, it’s “painful” to request a statement, it’s not easy to organize a financial business such as employee payments, and customers It was to be able to get the attention of. The number of days of response.
“As small business owners or founders, we struggle daily with banking and financial management as small businesses,” he said.
He and his business partner Steve Anavi said they really wanted to create this solution, “I wish we were in the first place.” This is because they launched Qonto in France.
Attack traditional banks
The company aims to resolve all these issues with better customer service and offers a non-mandatory policy that allows you to cancel your account with just a few clicks on your computer.
Most importantly, Qonto aims for fee transparency, so there are no hidden or remittance fees like many traditional banks do.
However, Qonto extends beyond simple bank accounts, and its services can also be used to simplify bookkeeping and bookkeeping.
“Much of what we do is also a new service that makes it easier for small business owners to run their businesses,” he said, adding that traditional banks do not offer these services. ..
When asked if fintech companies could outperform traditional banks, Prot said, “We definitely take a bit of the banking market or traditional banks.”
“Of course, new players tend to get bigger slices of pie, but I think the cake is getting bigger,” he added.
Another service offered by Qonto is the possibility of investing in crypto assets.
In June, the company partnered with Paris-based European crypto bank Coinhouse, which had nothing to do with being a French technology ally.
“I don’t necessarily want to push cryptocurrencies, I’m just asking for cryptocurrencies from customers,” Prot said, many under one roof to make it more effective for users. I would like to provide financial services.
Admitting that investing in cryptocurrencies is risky, he admits that the technology behind cryptocurrencies, blockchain, is innovative and used by fintech companies for certain aspects of security and risk. Said that it could be done.
Become a European champion
But what Prot is most excited about in the short term is to conquer the European fintech scene, and the acquisition of Berlin giant Penta plays a big role in that.
“Germany is the largest market for our industry in Europe and is closely related to the size of the economy and GDP,” he said.
“If we really want to be European leaders, it’s very important to be very strong in Germany.”
The deal said the deal would add an additional 50,000 customers to the current 250,000 freelancers and SME foundations in the European market.
He says he “never says” to open up markets outside Europe, but his goal is to be a “more powerful European champion”, so what other American players do with FinTech. I haven’t seen if I’m doing it.
“The challenge now is, in a sense, that we are probably number one in our segment,” he said.
“The question is how to keep growing fast and stay number one with even greater market share or position.”
Teamwork
One way to achieve this and continue to grow is to ensure that the French, Spanish, Italian and German markets have products that meet the needs of each country.
But Qonto’s success lies not only in the product, but Prot says he knew it was what entrepreneurs and freelancers needed, so there was no doubt.
Instead, it’s all about the team. Qonto’s workforce will grow to nearly 1,000 in a few years, with a goal of doubling by 2025.
One of the main challenges is how to organize a team, whether or not they hire and train the right people, to be “culturally strong” and to have employees “work well together”. Is to guarantee that.
The company lives on four corporate values: ambition, teamwork, superiority and integrity.
“For each of these words and values, we spent a lot of energy and money trying to be able to work well as a team. After all, all we do is thanks to the’crew’. That’s why. “
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