Founded in 2015 by Marko Wenthin, formerly of Deutsche Bank and Andreas Bittner, an ex-MD at core banking supplier Avaloq, solarisBank provides a set of plug-and-play APIs to power banking services for fintech startups.

Last year the firm received a pan-European banking license and plans to us the new money - which according to a source comes from German and UK VCs - to expand its geographic reach, targeting fintech companies across Europe.

In the meantime, Finextra understands that several German players have already signed on with solarisBank and will go live in the coming months. They are: P2P payments players Cash Link and Cringle; P2P lender Lensdstar; a self-styled bank for freelancers called Kontist; and a provider of banking services to SMEs called Penta.

In a statement to Finextra, solarisBank spokesman Philipp Blankenagle, says: "we cannot confirm these details. We are in an ongoing process, of which we're not commenting on at this point in time."

While not denying the substance of the rumours, he adds: "The information currently being spread is not correct."

SolarisBank emerged from the FinLeap startup platform but has quickly developed into a major operation of its own, employing nearly 100 staffers. In October it scored a major coup by inking a strategic agreement with MasterCard to use the card scheme's global infrastructure to develop new payments modules for its digital startups.

Both companies have agreed to collaborate on the development of banking modules for the solarisBank platform. In a first step, the Debit MasterCard - combining a debit card and credit card in a single product - is being brought to the solarisBank platform.