Pioneering issuer processing powerhouse, Enfuce, has today announced the launch of its proven and disruptive cloud-native Card as a Service (CaaS) platform in the UK, following a period of successful growth and expansion for the Finnish, female-driven fintech.

Having already conquered the thriving Nordic fintech market, with partnerships with banking group OP, Swedish neobank Rocker and Danish expense management platform Pleo, this strategic international expansion, led by Enfuce co-founders and co-CEOs Monika Liikamaa and Denise Johansson, is hot off the heels of the recently secured €45 million in Series C funding from Vitruvian Partners, a global investment firm intent on supporting the most ambitious, high-growth companies.

Enfuce’s UK launch heralds its arrival as a formidable challenger to the current issuer processor status quo, with its cloud-native card issuing platform offering unmatched scalability and enhanced security, with the potential to save money and time that companies would have spent on managing hardware infrastructure. Enfuce supports debit, credit, prepaid, gift, fleet and fuel card programmes in any form – plastic, digital and/or tokenised – for consumer, commercial and B2B applications, along with digital wallets. With its turnkey service model, packaged BIN sponsoring, the fastest onboarding time in the market, and all regulatory compliance is taken care of, Enfuce is a one-stop-shop for companies that want to issue cards to their customers.

Leading Enfuce’s team in the UK is newly-appointed Executive Vice President of Fintech Sales, Peter Baxendale, a payment industry veteran with an exceptional track record of pinpointing and maximising commercial growth opportunities at payment companies Retail Decisions (ReD) now ACI, Elavon and Modulr.

The funding from Vitruvian Partners will continue to drive Enfuce’s European expansion of its complete end-to-end next-generation card issuing and payments processing services. Vitruvian’s portfolio of successful tech disruptors also includes open API issuer Marqeta, the money transfer provider Wise, and cybersecurity specialist Bitdefender.

Commenting on Enfuce’s launch to the UK market, Monika Liikamaa, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Enfuce, says: “We are launching in Europe’s largest and most competitive fintech hotbed because the strengths and scalability of our CaaS offering are exactly what fintechs, banks and non-bank brands are searching for to succeed in their card launches. Enfuce does the heavy lifting of card issuing and processing, empowering businesses to focus on their core operations with the reassurance of a trusted compliant partner helping them in their quests to drive growth and customer loyalty.

Enfuce’s vision is clear - to educate every fintech, bank or brand, from challenger to goliath, to move to cloud-based embedded finance platforms by 2025 and drive the digital transformation of the UK and Europe for the benefit of businesses and consumers.”

Denise Johansson, Co-Founder, Co-CEO of Enfuce, adds: “The time is right for Enfuce to transform the UK payment market even further. Smart digital finance and embedded payments are triggering urgent demand for corporate digitisation, and Enfuce is ideally placed to bring our game-changing capabilities, like packaged EMI licensing, BIN sponsoring, programme management, card management and processing, to more companies across Europe. 

We have already disrupted the Nordic payment landscape by eliminating the need to rely on legacy processing systems that slow down operational efficiencies and lack the flexibility to integrate new payment services. Enfuce is making a bold statement with our expansion into the UK – we are the one-stop-shop for companies that want to issue cards to their customers, both in the UK and for UK entities to expand into the European Economic Area (EEA).”  

Established in 2016 in Finland, and already the trusted number one issuer processor for more than 30 partners, including energy company St1, small business finance provider Qred, and neobank indó, Enfuce is the only issuer processor that can launch CaaS for businesses in just eight weeks, an unrivalled onboarding timeframe compared to other providers that typically take up to six months to get partners up and running with embedded payments. Key applications for Enfuce’s services include expense management, neobanks, fuel cards, loyalty programmes, as well as corporate and consumer lending. 

Enfuce offers a fast and cost-effective alternative to existing issuer processing platforms with a stable platform that has the flexibility to quickly scale services and modules as and when needed. Enfuce’s CaaS ensures banks, fintechs, financial institutions and non-bank brands can become and remain fully PSD2-compliant, with programme management, data reporting and analytics, BIN sponsorship, card issuing, and effortless regulatory KYC/AML and payment scheme compliance all taken care of. With these unmatched levels of speed, flexibility and end-to-end programme management, clients can launch card payment services for customers with quicker time-to-market, give third-party service providers access to digital accounts, and give customers and end-users even more choice in payment methods.

With the environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives a key growth priority for organisations, Enfuce’s My Carbon Action, its transaction-based carbon footprint calculator, is an innovative tool that unites brands and consumers in the fight against climate change. Enfuce clients can offer My Carbon Action to climate-conscious customers, helping them to make responsible and sustainable purchasing decisions to reduce their carbon footprints. Pioneering and timely services like these highlight how Enfuce continually pushes frontiers to be the embedded finance partner of choice for several leading global companies and inspires customer loyalty in brands.

Commenting on the potential for Enfuce to transform issuer processing, Jussi Wuoristo, Partner at Vitruvian Partners, says: “Enfuce is a truly innovative issuer processor with a bold vision to empower companies to offer card payments to customers. Enfuce’s unique product offering, and the high calibre of its international team, have propelled it to the forefront of cloud-native issuer processing.”

Under the inspirational leadership of Monika and Denise, who are both payment pioneers in their own right, Enfuce’s cloud-native services and a strong focus on carbon-conscious products are perfectly aligned with the ESG demands of organisations everywhere. Evidence of how Enfuce is making a dynamic impact on the issuer processing market came in June 2022, when Enfuce and Pleo won the ‘Best Corporate Cards Initiative’ at the PayTech Awards.