Solaris has announced a major repositioning under new CEO Steffen Jentsch, who joined in January. Around 80 roles are being cut from a workforce of approximately 400. The platform is being rebuilt around standardised modules, with AI handling more of the operational work. The headline is "Europe's first AI-native bank." Personally, I am more interested in the less-covered part: what the new positioning might actually be, and who Solaris now wants as its customers.
A Company I Have Followed Since the Beginning
Solaris has never stayed still long enough to be fully defined. It obtained its German banking licence in 2016 faster than most thought possible, built its early base around neobanks and consumer fintechs like Vivid Money, Tomorrow, and Bitpanda, then won Samsung Pay in Germany as its first real enterprise deal. It pushed into identity and crypto custody, neither of which worked out. It acquired Contis, a UK-based EMI, to crack the UK market, but the deal ended with compliance failings, mass customer offboarding, and the eventual shutdown of the Contis business at high cost.
The ADAC (German Automobile Club) deal pointed toward what seemed like a new direction. Migrating 1.2 million co-brand credit cards onto Solaris infrastructure was exactly the kind of deal that newer BaaS players could not compete for: requiring a full banking licence and a credit book. The problem is that co-brand deals of that size are rare. But going back to competing with Swan or Weavr (I was part of Weavr 2020-2022), and the other dedicated BaaS platforms built specifically for embedded finance, were not real options either. These new BaaS providers were better positioned to serve B2B SaaS companies. So, Solaris had to reinvent itself one more time.
From Fintechs to Banks?
The new announcement references AI-driven financial services for partners, including Börse Stuttgart Group and ADAC. Börse Stuttgart Group operates in a heavily regulated environment, not the traditional customer for a BaaS company. My read is that Solaris will not return to traditional BaaS and will instead shift its focus toward customers in financial services. Solaris describes the next phase as aligning its business model around standardised and reusable modules, which could mean many things. What exactly this offering entails and why other players should choose Solaris over alternatives remains to be seen.
The AI Claim and the BaFin Reality
Every financial institution in Europe aims to call itself AI-native right now. What Solaris specifically promises is an operating model in which AI agents handle operational processes, banking workflows are rebuilt from the ground up, and humans retain responsibility for control and governance. For partners, the headline benefit is faster product development and greater scalability through the existing API infrastructure. The context worth keeping in mind is that Solaris has operated under close BaFin scrutiny since 2022, with a special monitor installed and restrictions on onboarding new clients without regulatory approval. Pushing AI-driven automation inside that environment requires every automated process to be fully auditable and explainable. The line about humans remaining responsible for control and governance is probably as much a signal to the regulator as it is a strategic statement.
Solaris has the licence, the infrastructure, and SBI's backing. Whether this is the repositioning that finally sticks is what to watch over the next 12 months.
