Digital Bank Lunar Snags Payments Platform Paylike 

Danish digital bank Lunar announced Tuesday (Oct. 19) it has acquired payments platform Paylike for an undisclosed amount, according to a Fintech Futures report, in a move that will allow Lunar’s business customers to receive eCommerce payments directly. 

Lunar also rolled out a one-step checkout offering in partnership with its Paylike acquisition to continue its quest to make online payments easier and quicker for businesses and consumers. Paylike says it processes 100 million euro (more than $116.4 million) every year across Europe. 

Lunar founder and CEO Ken Villum Klausen said the Paylike acquisition is the next step in his company’s quest to go “beyond banking,” noting that payments are “at the forefront of our next growth phase.” 

Lunar has more than 325,000 customers across its offices in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. It started as a personal finance management app in 2015 and secured its banking license in August 2019, then launched a banking platform in April 2020. The company has added premium subscriptions, personal consumer loans, buy now, pay later offerings and business bank accounts.  

In April, Lunar acquired Swedish lending and savings platform Lendify to increase its focus on consumer credit, then snagged 210 million euro (almost $244.5 million) in Series D funding in July that will be used to continue its expansion. 

Related: Lunar On How BaaS Can Unlock Access To New Financial Services 

Lunar began as a startup that offered a card app that could be linked to third-party bank accounts, then became a bank, traveling almost the opposite path of most financial institutions in the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) space who transform their banks into digital offerings. 

Obtaining a banking license wasn’t easy, Lunar’s Chief Operating Officer Morten Sønderskov told PYMNTS last year. Getting the license took almost two years, he said, but it’s enabled the company to bring mobile-oriented financial services to small businesses.