Bridge raises new funds from BPCE

The French bank BPCE is renewing its financial support for Bridge, the former BtoB activity of Bankin'. Once again, it has teamed up with Truffle Capital to organise this fund-raising, which is a confirmation of their joint ambition to take the plunge into the world of payment by transfer.

FACTS

• As a European reference in Open Banking with more than 200 connected European financial institutions, Bridge is once again attracting investment from Truffle Capital, as well as a minority share from the French bank BPCE via BPCE Digital & Payments.

• 20 million is being sought to help Bridge to

  • continue to develop its payment solutions, particularly in the area of account-to-account payments

  • accelerate its development in Europe (and cover 7 new countries by the end of 2022, namely Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom)

  • strengthen its position as the leader in Open Banking in France, and more specifically its banking aggregation and data enrichment solutions

  • conquer new market segments.

• To this end, Bridge plans to recruit 40 new profiles in the coming months to strengthen its current team of 60 employees.

CHALLENGES

• Continuing the momentum: BPCE and Truffle Capital first invested in Bridge as recently as last March. At the time, their joint commitment led to the demerger of Bridge and Bankin', with Casino becoming the sole owner of the latter.

• Confirming strategic ambitions: The first round of investment by BPCE and Truffle Capital in Bridge illustrated their interest in payment initiation, the first use case envisaged thanks to Bridge's skills. Today, their new investment makes it even clearer that this ambition has become a priority for the French bank in particular, in a context of renewal for payment services.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• The Banque de France itself is currently working on accelerating cashless payments and, in particular, the mass adoption of instantaneous credit transfers, in an attempt to put the failure of EPI behind it and preserve European sovereignty in the payment market.

• This commitment is also accompanied by the adoption by French financial institutions of cutting-edge solutions such as Request-to-Pay. The DGFIP is currently working on the creation of an instantaneous transfer link based on the request-to-pay system.