Fintech in Europe

Fintech regulation in Europe is mostly EU law. Payment fintechs work under the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), crypto firms under MiCA, and every licensed financial firm under the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for its IT risk. A firm authorized in one member state can passport its license into the others, so a German payment institution can serve customers in France or Spain without a second license, and a Lithuanian bank can open a branch in Germany.

The rulebook keeps changing. The EU is replacing PSD2 with a new directive (PSD3) and a directly applicable Payment Services Regulation; negotiators reached provisional agreement in November 2025, and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer expects the rules to apply from mid to late 2027. Regulation (EU) 2024/886 made instant euro transfers a standard service at every provider that offers SEPA credit transfers.

A fintech with a new product can ask a supervisor early whether it needs a license. In Europe this happens through innovation facilitators: innovation hubs, where a supervisor answers questions, and regulatory sandboxes, where a firm tests under supervision. The European Supervisory Authorities EBA, ESMA and EIOPA counted 41 innovation hubs and 14 regulatory sandboxes across the EEA in their 2023 joint report. BaFin runs such a contact point for fintechs in Germany.

The supervisors coordinate in the European Forum for Innovation Facilitators (EFIF), set up after a joint ESA report of 2019. Its members come from the hubs and sandboxes of all 30 EEA countries, and they share their experience with firms and try to reach common views on how to treat new products and business models. For a fintech that plans to expand across Europe, EFIF is the reason one supervisor's view often carries to the next.

Europe's fintech hubs each have their own focus. Frankfurt hosts the European Central Bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank and BaFin's markets and payments units, and TechQuartier connects more than 650 startups with corporates and investors. Berlin is home to more than a third of German fintechs, among them N26 and Trade Republic, covered on fintech in Berlin. Vilnius is the EU license base of Revolut, which has served German customers with a Lithuanian banking license since 2022 and now gives them German IBANs through a German branch, as described on neobanks in Germany. Switzerland sits outside the EU passport, with its own supervisor FINMA; its crypto scene is on Crypto Valley.

Payments are a large share of European fintech, and their topics follow the same list across countries: cross-border payments, financial crime, financial inclusion, payments regulation, digital currencies and open banking. Finance Loop has pages on cross-border payments in Europe, financial crime in payments, financial inclusion and digital currencies in payments.

The European Fintech Association (EFA) is a non-profit association in Brussels that speaks for fintechs before the EU institutions. It formed in 2019 from two groups, FinTechs for Europe and the European FinTech Alliance, and its members work in digital banking, payments, lending, international money transfers and investment advice. It represents its members before the European institutions, where PSD3, open finance and the AI Act are negotiated, and it runs education and networking between companies, policymakers and the public. National fintech associations do the same work in each member state.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for people who build and supervise fintech in Europe: founders, bankers, payment and compliance staff, IT people and AI engineers. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg, and joins partners in other European cities.

Finance Loop is a partner of Frankfurt Digital Finance, part of the European Fintech Day at the Gesellschaftshaus Palmengarten. It partnered with Finteda on AI in Finance Paris in Paris La Défense and was media partner of the European Blockchain Convention 2026 in Barcelona. In Frankfurt, Finance Loop is a partner of the FinTech Founder & Investor Evening of Finteda, Schalast and Fincite, and it held TechClub 25/3, a fintech afterwork party, with TechQuartier. Fintech meetups in Frankfurt, such as FinTech FFM, often take place at TechQuartier. Joining is free on the Engage page.

Through EU law that applies in every member state: PSD2 for payments, MiCA for crypto-assets, DORA for IT resilience, MiFID II for investment services and the AI Act for AI systems. National supervisors such as BaFin grant the licenses, and a license passports into the rest of the EU and EEA.

The European Fintech Association (EFA) is a non-profit association in Brussels that represents fintech companies before the EU institutions. It was founded in 2019 from the merger of FinTechs for Europe and the European FinTech Alliance.

Yes. Frankfurt Digital Finance brings finance and fintech people together in Frankfurt, the European Blockchain Convention meets in Barcelona, and fintech meetups run in most European finance centers. Finance Loop events and partner conferences are in the calendar above.

Yes. FinTech FFM, a Meetup.com group with more than 4,100 members, meets every six to eight weeks, often at TechQuartier. Finance Loop also holds meetups and panels in Frankfurt.