Pedro Pinto Coelho - Banco BNI Europa

Reinventing Banking

BNI Europa has managed in the last couple of years to emerge as a reference for a new concept of banking by embracing technology and partnering with many Fintech companies across Europe.

Banco BNI Europa faced with a challenging economic environment in its home country; Portugal has redefined the way to do banking. With a small balance sheet of 100 M euros it realized the only way to become profitable would be by growing in niche markets. It also had the challenge to boost its growth in the shortest period possible. With this task in mind the management decided to implement simultaneously an aggressive growth target by becoming the reference digital bank and attract clients for term deposits across Europe namely Portugal, Germany, Holland and Austria. On the other hand, it developed a new digital consumer credit platform that allows clients to get credit approval instantly and the cash in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, as it was developing this platform, the bank used the existing liquidity to create a portfolio of credit across different countries, namely UK, Germany, France, Holland and Belgium and credit products that are originated by Fintech’s specialized in originating this type of assets such as consumer credit, SME Lending, Invoice Discounting, Student Lending, etc. BNI Europa is now one of the most active institutional investors in the alternative finance market.

As the bank grows, it has now three solid pillars that allows the bank to grow and continue enlarging its product offering. First, it will continue increasing its expertise in the credit investment side by broadening its investments across more geographies. Secondly it will continue developing its online consumer credit platform by adding other origination channels such as E-commerce, stores, Companies HR departments etc. Finally, the bank will continue to be open to partnerships with Fintechs to offer other niche credit in selected geographies starting in Portugal and moving to other countries. This will allow the bank to broaden its business with a limited investment and benefiting from state of the art technology.

BNI Europa believes in the open architecture concept and intends to challenge the traditional banks by offering products through advanced platforms that will allow the customer to have the best experience.

“It is a great honor to have received the “Gamechanger of the Year” award this year. I believe in permanent learning, innovation and focus to be successful. BNI Europa has a very motivated team and with this team effort we have been able to grow fast and be a reference in the new wave of Challenger Banks.

Visit: Banco BNI Europa