Opera, one of the world’s leading web browsers with a user base of more than 350 million people, has completed the acquisition of the Estonian-based company Pocosys, as well as an sign an agreement to further take over Pocopay, a sister company, which holds a payment institution license and provides financial services in the European Union.
The value of the acquisition has not been disclosed.
With these acquisitions, Tallinn will become Opera’s second European hub for fintech services, following Gothenburg, Sweden. Founded in 2015, Pocosys provides modern banking technologies to fintech companies. It has previously licensed its financial software to companies in Japan, Ghana and the UK.
“The way we use financial services is starting to change rapidly,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers and European Fintech at Opera. “We see a lot of potential for better and easier services. Needless to say we are excited about our future fintech plans associated with Pocosys and our existing brand.”
With a growing user base of more than 50 million monthly active browser users in Europe, Opera is already among the leading consumer technology companies in the region. A large and growing PC and smartphone user base is actively choosing to use Opera browsers rather than the default browsers that come preinstalled on their devices. Pocosys offers Opera additional capabilities and skill sets to allow for future synergies between its browser and fintech businesses.
“We are very excited to join the Opera family,” said Oksana Tolmatshova, the CEO of Pocosys. “Opera is a leading European consumer technology company, and our solutions will allow Opera to further grow its unique product offering, entering new categories”.
The market conditions for the financial sector in Europe are changing rapidly. Open banking allows third party developers to build solutions and applications around financial institutions. It also makes it possible for new challenger banks and payment methods to emerge and provide new and better services.
“Estonia is a great place to attract talent for any European fintech efforts,” said Indrek Neivelt, founder of Pocosys. “The country is among the most digitised in the world, and is a thriving center for fintech start-ups.”
Almost all state services in Estonia can be accessed online, and the country has actively promoted itself as the ideal location for tech start-ups.
More than six per cent of the country’s workforce is employed in the IT industry.
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