Ebury, the fintech supporting SMEs around the world
“A platform for 30,000 million financial transactions supporting SMEs around the world” is the heart and core business of Ebury, the fintech created in 2009 in London by Juan Lobato and Salvador García. The company, a financial company with a strong technological content, took its name from the London street that hosted the first office. Ebury accompanies SMEs from all over the world in foreign trade activities. It deals with international payments and collections, risk management, currency exchange, liquidity management and commercial lending. The growth of the company is well explained by the CEO, Juan Lobato “We started in the UK, first in the United Kingdom, then in Spain and Amsterdam. 1 million euros as initial capital from the Junta de Andalucía and a headquarters in Malaga. In 2010, with the support of the Vitruvian venture capital fund, we expanded into all European capitals”.
Ebury, great expertise on currency exchange
The business space was boosted by the modest service that large banks provided to SMEs in their overseas operations. Expertise in e-commerce and in particular currency exchange allowed the company to quickly take a share of the market. And then the cornerstone of Ebury’s expansion was the entry into the capital of Banco Santander. 400 million for 54% of the shares and all the experience of the large Institute on financial markets outside Europe. And now it seems that the driving force for expansion has started. In fact, in the past year, Ebury, in addition to a training center in Malaga, has opened offices in Dublin, Prague, Stockholm, Montreal, Santiago de Chile and Shenzhen in China. Many “mergers & acquisitions” were carried out. These include Brazilian bank Bexs, Trans Skills Investment in the Middle East (payroll processing) and Prime Financial in South Africa (treasury consultancy and intermediation). Ebury’s new strategy is quite clear “We want to increase our presence in Africa where the expected population growth is impressive. We try to offer our customers the most competitive exchange rate because we know how inefficiency in terms of currencies is very serious for international trade.”
Ebury, SMEs are the technology company’s biggest customers
Who are Ebury’s typical customers? “Mainly industrial companies with a turnover of 5 to 100 million euros, not supported by the traditional banking system in their international commercial operations – underlines the CEO of the company – these are companies with an annual growth of 20% or 30%”. Technology is the engine of fintech. The company has approximately 2000 employees with an average age of 33 years. 400 are IT developers and 600 salespeople, in 40 offices around the world. Listing on the stock exchange is expected in 2025. In 2023 revenues grew by 85% (£204m). Ebitda of £16m, which contrasts with operating losses of £34.1m recorded the previous year. Currently the internal valuation is 2000 million euros. Ultimately, the dream for Ebury would be to arrive at the digital euro, which is considered a great opportunity for financial institutions. Opportunity to stop weighing on public coffers with their cyclical crises. “For us – concludes Lobato – it could be very positive. It would make the movement of coins to businesses cheaper and help us. But it has other advantages, as it would change the banking world. Greater scrutiny of central banks to see how money moves and is spent. This would mean greatly reducing the systemic risk of the banking system while avoiding the public costs of crises.”
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