Greek payments firm Viva Wallet has hired investment bank Jeffries to advise on the €500 million fundraising just weeks after officially acquiring Praxia Bank’s banking license.
Following the completion of the share purchase agreement with AMC Oak, Viva Wallet’s banking licence will allow the Athens-based company to offer a wider range of lending and savings products, due to be announced by the end of 2020.
Sources revealed to Reuters that Jeffries will offer stakes in a new legal entity, taking on Viva Wallet’s banking loans as “Viva wants to be a neobank without a loan book.”
In addition to this, Viva intends to sell existing loans to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) within 24 hours of finalisation in an attempt to remove risk from the balance sheet and help regain the trust of customers and investors after Greece’s sovereign debt crisis.
While both Jeffries and Viva Wallet declined to comment, the deal could provide a blueprint for how European fintech banks raise money in future as some have struggled amid the economic downturn as a result of Covid-19.
Viva offers cloud-based payments services in 23 European countries, providing payment in the euro, British pound and Romanian leu. Last month, e-commerce platform WooCommerce developed by Automattic partnered with Viva Wallet to offer a free Pan-European native payments gateway solution and selected ClearBank as its banking provider in the UK.