Blender Buys a Lithuanian Credit Union for $5.8M, Eyes Digital Bank Status

Over the weekend, Blender, the Netherlands-based FinTech, announced it had purchased Lithuanian credit union (CU) for NIS 18 million ($5.8 million).

Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, Blender will own 77% of Šeimos Kredito Unija. The CU specializes in mortgages and manages deposits of NIS 124 million ($39.8 million) at an average interest rate of 2.2%.

With the purchase, Blender said it hopes to become a pan-European digital bank specializing in real estate-backed and consumer credit. The CU holds an agreement in principle for transferring its services ​​to the bank and has applied for a banking license.

“The deal is another step in realizing Blender’s vision to become a market leader in digital credit banking in Europe,” said Gal Aviv, CEO of the Blender Financial Technologies Group in a statement.

He said the new and diverse sources of financing would increase the company’s overall profitability.

The announcement comes days after a group of  U.S. banking regulators withdrew their lawsuit that sought to block the federal government from granting bank charters to FinTech companies.

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the national trade group of bank regulators, said Thursday (Jan. 13) that it had dropped the complaint in federal court challenging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) nonbank charter program and Figure Technologies’ application for an OCC nonbank charter.

CSBS said it withdrew its suit after Figure, the San Francisco-based FinTech, amended its bank application to seek FDIC deposit insurance, complying with the legal requirement that national banks obtain federal deposit insurance before operating as a bank.

See also: US State Banking Regulators Drop Lawsuit Over FinTech Charters