Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, Spuerkeess and Banque de Luxembourg have now acquired parts of the regtech firm. i-Hub CEO Pascal Morosini confirmed to Delano that the stakeholdings are as follows: Post (40%); BGL BNP Paribas (20%); Spuerkeess (20%); Bil (10%); Banque de Luxembourg (10%).

The European Commission approved the deal on 6 December, stating in : “The proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given its very limited impact on the market structure. The transaction was examined under the simplified merger control procedure.”

“The financial sector was looking for a way to visualise [KYC] efforts,” explained Morosini, “and to provide their clients--which sometimes are common--with a digital solution and a digital portal.” That way, he added, clients of multiple banks could avoid doing the same work twice (such as uploading documents).

Most of the banks will keep their own staff, he commented, even if part of the job is outsourced to i-Hub.

The CEO furthermore sees the development as a long time in the making, thanks to the rising volume of regulation with which banks need to be compliant. “[This pressure] has pushed the banks to actually look at outsourcing and also to decide to do something about it,” he said in an interview.

As a regtech and licenced support PFS, i-Hub specialises in helping its clients with regulations related to due diligence, describing itself on its website as “the first centralised KYC repository for ongoing due diligence in Europe”.

Romain Weiler, chief operating officer of Banque de Luxembourg, commented in the press release that i-Hub “is a unique initiative and opportunity in Luxembourg, bringing together five of the leading banks in the financial centre around a common ambition: to simplify the life of our clients by making the repetitive processes of documenting business relationships more fluid, both on the client’s side and on the banks’ side”.

Future plans for i-Hub

“We intend to develop ourselves beyond Luxembourg, especially in Europe,” said Morosini, citing the retail and private banking sectors, as well as asset management, as targets.

In the shorter-term, he added, they will be busy with onboarding new customers brought by the three banks.

Asked if the acquisition means any changes to the i-Hub services and products themselves, the CEO said not in the near-term.