Nordic banking app Lunar Way raises €13M

Published February 11, 2019

Lunar Way, the Nordic banking app that’s riding new EU regulation to help inject more competition into the region, has raised €13 million in new funding. The round is led by SEED Capital, with participation from Greyhound Capital, Socii Capital and a number of individual investors from the financial services industry.

It also comes shortly after Lunar Way announced it had attained a PISP payments license, meaning that the fintech can offer a more comprehensive banking feature-set, including making payments out of third-party bank accounts on a user’s behalf.

This, says Lunar Way founder Ken Villum Klausen, also paves the way for the startup to crack open the “Nordic clearing system monopoly,” which has traditionally made it difficult for new banking entrants.

“The new payment license grants us the option to instruct underlying banks to do payments, pay bills or even pay in a retail environment from their accounts,” explains Klausen. “So when you sign up, you’re able to connect to an existing bank-account in the sign up flow. And after that control all your finances through our platform.”

In addition, Lunar Way has a PSD2 AISP license, so that it is regulated to “co-own the transaction data,” which Klausen says Lunar Way can use in the company’s PFM features and for new products.

“The [Lunar Way] product offers all the fundamentals from a banking app. You can pay bills, transfer money, set a budget, do saving-goals, manage your card etc. We also have a few subscription-based credit lines, where you pay a monthly fee [for credit],” he says.

In Denmark, Lunar Way also acts as a “NemKonto” — or national Danish account — a type of bank account that the Danish government stipulates by law that all citizens and businesses must have.

Adds Klausen: “It has taken a few years to build our app to suit the different demands of the Nordic countries, but now we are a serious competitor to traditional banks. Our aim is — and have always been — to fundamentally change the status quo of banking. We’re now welcoming more than 10,000 new users a month and counting, which is substantial considering the fact that the Nordics’ total addressable market is 27 million people.”

Meanwhile, Lunar Way says it will use the funding to help accelerate the banking app’s growth, in a bid to reach further scale across the Nordics. I also understand the fintech is already gearing up for a new funding round pegged for later this summer.