Fintech Friday: Lemon Way

Established over 10 years ago, Lemon Way is a regulated payment institution that offers solutions for the new economy, explains chief marketing and communication officer Karine Coutinho to Boris Plantier.

“Lemon Way was founded in October 2007 by Sebastien Burlet,” explains Karine Coutinho, chief marketing officer of Lemon Way. “The name is an anagram of ‘money law’ (payment = ‘money’; regulated = ‘law’), and it was innovative and futuristic at a time when brand names referring to fruits (Orange, Apple, BlackBerry) were becoming mainstream! At that time, the monopolistic position of banks was well established in the payment industry (bank transfers, checks, cards, remote payments), but banks were tremendously lacking in innovation. This is when Lemon Way decided to focus all its efforts on developing the concept of secured wallets and mobile payment and initiated its adventure in the European payments arena.”

Official certification was soon to follow. “December 2012 marked a real shift in Lemon Way’s history as it became officially certified as a payment institution by the ACPR – Banque de France,” says Coutinho. “Lemon Way is now a pan-European fintech dedicated to crowdfunding platforms, e-commerce marketplaces and other companies looking for payment processing, wallet management and third-party payment in a KYC/AML-regulated framework.”

Lemon Way collects money for third parties and keeps their funds secure in segregated accounts. “Lemon Way facilitates PSD2-regulated payments for digital platforms,” says Coutinho. “The payment solution is trusted and used by over 1,400 websites in Europe. Since December 2012, the company has opened five million payment accounts (also called e-wallets) to end users.”

The company provides four main solutions: Lemon Way Enterprise, Lemon Way for E-commerce, Lemon Way Collect and a white-labeled solution.

“Lemon Way Enterprise includes Accounts, Holding, Regulatory and Control functions,” says Coutinho. “Accounts collects end clients’ payments from partner marketplaces (industrial marketplaces, crowdfunding, sharing economy, e-commerce). Holding keeps funds from leading financial players in secure accounts; Regulatory includes KYC and anti-fraud checks; and Control entails financial flow control and client transaction security.

“Lemon Way for E-commerce is a turnkey payment solution that allows any website to receive card payments.

“Lemon Way Collect includes a turnkey payment solution that lets marketplaces receive card payments in euros, and a wallet management solution for vendors in your marketplace.

“Our white-labeled solution is a complete, real-time, remote e-wallet management solution that is sold to banks (such as BPCE) and corporate clients (such as Auchan).”

Looking ahead, continued growth is on Lemon Way’s horizon as the company builds on cooperative relationships and sets new targets. “By the end of the year, Lemon way will start its UK expansion thanks to an enhanced relationship with Barclays,” says Coutinho. “Barclays will also be supporting Lemon Way as it looks at further opportunities in several key continental European countries. This bank-fintech cooperation will provide an ideal solution for crowdfunding and P2P lending companies.”

“It’s a good fit for Barclays to be working with agile FinTech firms such as Lemon Way,” says David Farrow, head of international corporate banking at Barclays. “We believe that this cooperation benefits both companies and will help serve the evolving payment needs of businesses in the UK and across Europe. By joining us at Rise London, Lemon Way will become part of an innovative, creative environment that has helped dozens of growing companies thrive.”

Barclays has also agreed to support Lemon Way on a plan to serve some key continental Europe markets, such as Spain, Italy or Germany, where both organizations have active customer relationships. “The UK is the most mature market in Europe for crowdfunding and P2P lending,” says Emmanuel de Cazotte, VP supervisory board and UK general manager at Lemon Way. “We are confident that UK websites will reduce costs, while increasing payment fulfillment with Lemon Way’s API, a one-stop shop to handle KYC/AML compliance, in-payment reconciliation, segregation of client money, split payments, and payment account management.”

Lemon Way has recently raised a €10 million funding round led by Breega Capital, with the participation of Speedinvest, a fintech venture capital fund (this transaction is currently being approved by the French regulator, ACPR). “This funding will enable Lemon Way to continue its expansion in Europe, particularly in Germany and the United Kingdom, and to consolidate its strongholds in France, Spain and Italy, where it is already a leader in the new business of managing money transactions for digital marketplaces and crowdfunding websites such as Lendix, Wiseed, Housers, Zankyou, Workinvoice and more,” says Coutinho. “Lemon Way plans to recruit 30 people to strengthen its current team of 80.”

As Lemon Way continues to accelerate its hypergrowth pace, the company has set a goal to process €2.6 billion in 2018 thanks to major accounts it has recently signed such as the SoLocal Group (YellowPages), CNP Assurances and the Federation Française de Football. “Our new business of collecting money on behalf of marketplaces implies the issuance of millions of e-wallets in real time and in a strict regulatory framework,” says Damien Guermonprez, chairman of the supervisory board at Lemon Way. “This is the route we are digging throughout Europe.”