“I am very proud of all the decisions that have been taken, the capital increases that have been made and the very good direction we have chosen since our beginnings, when no one was talking about the payment platform yet. Going from €500m in transactions in 2015 to more than €10bn this year, from €3m to €4m in turnover to €60m this year, and from three employees in Luxembourg in 2013 to 250 in different countries, this is a great success, even if people tend to forget that we are a Luxembourg fintech,” said Romain Mazeries, CEO of Mangopay.

Since the end of August, the fintech, which does not communicate much, has been trying to talk about its evolution. Even when some dimensions are less positive than the volume of transactions, the CEO of Mangopay says he is “delighted to talk in full transparency”.

Financing and future targets

First of all, the losses. More than €15m last year. “They are quite normal in a growth cycle like ours. What we need to see is the confidence and support that our shareholder (Crédit Mutuel Arkéa since the end of 2015, editor's note) has shown us,” the young entrepreneur says. After having given €3.5m in 2019, the French mutual bank has given €6.5m in 2020 and already €7.5m this year in three capital increases. It is expected to put its hands back in its pockets again before the end of the year and probably next year, a year that has been heralded as the pivotal year when the French-Luxembourg fintech should (finally) be profitable.

“These investments are linked to our prudential equity and our European obligation to protect funds and strengthen our equity,” Mazeries says. “It's a question of volume. The more volume we do, the higher our prudential capital requirements. Although we have been profitable since 2018, we have chosen to continue our investment in the development of both our product and our teams.”

The sector is finding itself in a period of consolidation. Worldline recently bought Ingenico, making it a European market leader, Nexi merged with its competitor SI. On the other hand, big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, have a growing interest in keeping customers and users in their ecosystem. “Our strength is our flexibility, which allows us to respond to all types of business models. In the coming months, we will continue to launch new verticals, strengthen our anti-money laundering tools, deploy instant payments, whether incoming or outgoing transfers, and strengthen our presence in Eastern Europe, particularly in Warsaw,” adds the company, which now has 130 million users, including 30 million with a payment account.

A bump on the road

Meanwhile the National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL) in France has opened an investigation into online marketplace platform Vinted, one of Manogopay’s clients. “They are focusing in particular on the operation of the website, which requires the sending of a scanned copy of the identity card in order to unlock the amount of transactions made on a user's account. The checks will also cover the legal basis associated with this system, the procedure and criteria for blocking an account, as well as the data retention periods,” .

What is behind this investigation? “You will ask the CNIL,” says Mazeries. “The only thing I can tell you about it is that we apply to Vinted exactly the same process and the same rules for the same obligations as to the 2,500 platforms we serve. That is our responsibility.” Nevertheless, if the CNIL saw a problem with this, Mangopay would have to adapt the system for all its customers.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.