German digital invoicing solution lexoffice launches a bank account and debit card product in cooperation with Solaris (product website and product launch coverage - both only in German).
The brand lexoffice was started in the early 2010s by it’s mother company, Lexware, which offers similar services but in desktop versions. Lexware, and consequently Lexoffice, are part of the Haufe Group, which was founded in the 1950s as a publishing business but is now mostly offering software products. lexoffice’s typical customers are self-employed and small business owners who use lexoffice for their bookkeeping activities, such as writing invoices.
For a few years, lexoffice users could already connect external bank accounts via the open banking integration and it is very likely that lexoffice will continue to offer this integration. So why did lexoffice decide to offer a banking product themselves? While the integration of bank accounts via open banking works relatively well, a service like lexoffice can create a better user experience with an embedded banking product: real-time data and no need to re-enter credentials are two examples. Additionally, a company that offers banking products themselves can monetise them by charging the customer or through interchange. While the company can also charge the customer for an open banking integration, this is uncommon and rather impossible to achieve.
When companies like lexoffice launch such banking products, they never aim to convert all their customers to their own banking product. There should be plenty of benefits for the user to make the move; however, if a customer wants to stick with their existing bank (and there can be many reasons for that), they can still use the service. Typically, the business case of the brand offering banking products does not require the majority of users to make the switch, but anything between 20 and 40% is often considered a success, depending on various details.
We have seen a couple of providers in Europe that have launched business bank accounts in the past few months (i.e., Moneybird and Jimdo), and I know we will see more of such companies launch their own business banking products. As long as the brands can create unique user benefits by combining financial and non-financial products and/or have unique access to potential customers, they are in a good spot to succeed.
