When Daria Dubinina and Alexander Novozhenov co-founded Crassula in 2015, they were building a merchant payment service that pulled from the hot trend of that day: virtual currencies.

However, clients began to request a white label solution. The team explored the opportunity and succeeded to build a solution that was gaining traction. Crassula recognized the growth- and innovation opportunities in open banking and soon the company pivoted from providing payment services to merchants directly to an open banking solution, providing white-label and on-demand products to fintech companies.

Today, Crassula’s mission is to support the launch, growth and development of FinTechs globally. The company empowers businesses to openmulti-currency accounts, virtual IBANS, issue cards, offer SEPA and international money transfers, provide payment gateway products. Services are provided within 2 White Label products: Banking and eCommerce (PSP), both of them provide administrative panel and reporting, open banking APIs, both web, Android and iOS interfaces.

According to founders, Lighthouse gave Crassula an understanding of the current path of development of banks and card schemes. This allowed focusing on the target customers’ needs and grow further.

Looking forward, the founders recognize a trend in the industry moving towards digitalization. Bigtechs are entering the fintech space. Google is approaching to become a fintech vendor, and Facebook is increasing the competition with their large communities of people and businesses around them.

Meanwhile, founders expect higher demand in the banking market and state that Crassula will put further emphasis on listening to what products customers want and try to implement this within the platform. At the end of the day, the customer will always be in primary focus.