What happened: During Sifted’s conference, Wolt’s CEO Miki Kuusi mentioned that Wolt might be applying for a bank licence at some point (Sifted). They have obtained an e-money licence this year after obtaining a payment institution licence back in 2021. These licences are likely helpful for the new digital storefronts that Wolt is working on.
Similar to its owner, Doordash, Wolt plans to enable restaurant owners to create simple landing pages where customers can place orders and pay, potentially helping Wolt to earn payment fees on non-delivery orders. As you can see, Wolt is today already able to provide a wide range of financial products, but cannot offer lending products themselves. Kuusi mentioned that Wolt knows their customers better than any bank and would likely be able to provide the best financing terms to restaurant owners.
Wolt Capital: Coincidentally, Wolt launched Wolt Capital earlier this year when it announced its partnership with German lending infrastructure provider Finmid. Between the steps of making the decision to apply for a bank licence and actually receiving a licence will be a few years; thus, the partnership with Finmid might be the first logical step on this journey to understand customer needs better and offer the right products.
Market landscape: In the past few years, we have seen a number of food platforms launch financing products for restaurant owners. Very often, these providers have a close relationship with the businesses and can often leverage a lot more relevant data than traditional banks. So far, all these platforms have partnered with infrastructure providers (e.g., Banxware or Youlend in addition to Finmid) and avoided being regulated themselves. It will be interesting to see if Wolt is the first one to actually go that route.
Thanks to subscriber Mikko for highlighting this news story to me!
