"We assumed the worst case scenario"

Tamaz Georgadze deliberately expanded his start-up Raisin to the neighboring island during Brexit. It didn't take months, but years.

The shock was still deep-seated in Europe, and in the UK anyway, when they decided on the next expansion at Raisin. When the British had just decided that they would leave the European Union, seal themselves off and jeopardize economic relations with EU members, the Raisin management team in Berlin went into action mode and made a momentous decision: now we want to go to the UK.

The start-up Raisin, which is best known in this country under the "Weltsparen" brand, had already been in existence for four years at this point. On its platform, the fintech brings together banks from all over Europe that are looking for money and offering interest with savers who would like a few percentage points more return on their savings. For example, savers currently receive up to 1.8 percent if they invest their money for ten years. Shorter terms also bring lower returns. Deposits of up to 100,000 euros are protected by the European Deposit Guarantee Scheme, as Raisin assures. The Berlin-based start-up has already brokered more than 27 billion euros between banks and savers. In 2016, the year of the Brexit vote, the figure was just under two billion euros. Raisin itself earns a commission on the brokered deposits.

"Alongside Germany, the British market is the most important for us."

Tamaz Georgadze, co-founder of Raisin

Founder Tamaz Georgadze says today that he was attracted to the island by the fact that the UK has two advantages: "Firstly, people there are used to comparison portals, which makes it easier for us to get started. And secondly, the UK is a huge market with a lot of potential for an intermediary platform like ours." What he means is that most people see the UK as a sector with a few large banks such as Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds. However, there are dozens of smaller financial institutions with individual licenses, specialist banks that consumers know little about and foreign banks with a license in the UK that need to refinance themselves. "We saw all of these banks as potential customers," says Georgadze today, four years later.

Great Britain was new territory for Raisin. Almost all banks had previously issued their offers in euros. In the UK, however, banks logically issue deposits in pounds, a currency that is otherwise less important in the world than the US dollar, for example. "Going into a closed currency area for the first time was of course a major challenge," says Georgadze today.

And then there was another thing that nobody could have calculated: Brexit. What if the UK leaves the EU without a trade agreement? What if economic relations are reduced to a minimum? And what if cross-border service providers suddenly find it more difficult? Georgadze remembers well the worries they had. According to the founder, this could only be solved with one tactic: "We assumed the worst-case scenario. That way, we could be sure that the project would work even if the UK completely sealed itself off."

In 2017, Georgadze therefore struck directly. Raisin bought the financial services provider PBF Solutions and a team of 15 people in Manchester, including all the necessary licenses, for an estimated seven-figure sum. He wanted to protect himself should the UK largely restrict its relationship with the mainland or make it more difficult for companies from Europe to operate on the island. This was followed shortly afterwards by a "slow start" in the UK in 2018 and Raisin has been on course for growth since 2019 at the latest.

20 banks are currently connected, with one or two being added every month according to the start-up, and by the end of 2021 there should be almost 40 to 50 financial institutions accepting savers' deposits via the UK platform. However, Georgadze is keeping quiet about how much turnover or even profit Raisin generates there. Just this much: "Alongside Germany, the UK market is the most important for us and will become even more important in the future."