The DACH Market for Fintechs

In Germany BaFin licenses banks, payment and e-money institutions and crypto-asset service providers. In Austria the FMA is, in the words of the Chambers fintech guide, a one-stop authority for most fintech business models; it issued the first MiCA authorizations in the EU and expects crypto firms to have people and decision-making in Austria. A license from either can be passported to the other and to the rest of the EU, as EU passporting explains.

Switzerland works under its own law. FINMA's fintech license lets a firm accept deposits up to CHF 100 million or hold crypto-based assets in collective custody, as long as it neither invests the deposits nor pays interest on them. Switzerland has no PSD2, and open banking runs on voluntary platforms such as bLink, described on open banking in Switzerland. A Swiss license gives no access to EU customers, and an EU license none to Swiss ones.

Frankfurt has the ECB, the Bundesbank, Deutsche Börse and TechQuartier. Berlin has the most German fintechs, 189 by the count of the Investitionsbank Berlin, among them N26, Trade Republic and Solaris. Munich has Allianz, Munich Re and the InsurTech Hub Munich. Zurich has SIX and one of the two head offices of the Swiss National Bank, with 186 fintechs in the canton and 135 more in neighboring Zug, the center of Crypto Valley. Vienna holds almost all of Austria's banks, insurers and fintech events, among them Vienna Blockchain Week and the VI3NNA Congress.

An EU firm usually starts in Germany, the largest of the three markets, and passports into Austria with the same license; Switzerland follows as a separate project under Swiss law. A Swiss firm needs an EU license for German and Austrian customers, from BaFin, the FMA or another EU supervisor. Payment rails differ too: euro-area banks offer SEPA instant payments, described on instant payments in Europe, while Swiss instant payments run on SIX's SIC5 platform since August 2024.

D for Deutschland (Germany), A for Austria and CH for Confoederatio Helvetica (Switzerland), the international vehicle codes of the three countries. Some firms add Liechtenstein, an EEA member, and write DACHL.

No. An EU license from Germany or Austria covers both countries through the passport, but not Switzerland. Swiss customers need a FINMA license or an exemption under Swiss law.

Finance Loop is a professional network for emerging technologies in finance with more than 4,000 members. It runs events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg in four fields, Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance, and is built in collaboration with Frankfurt Main Finance and TechQuartier.

A company new to the region can sponsor a webinar (EUR 2,500 net) and help set its agenda, sponsor a meetup (EUR 3,000 net) with a presentation slot of up to 20 minutes, host its own event (from EUR 7,000 net), become a partner with year-round benefits (Premium Partner from EUR 7,800 net a year), or join a delegation, for example to Frankfurt Digital Finance or the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, with personal introductions from the Finance Loop team (EUR 1,200 net per person).