Coop Launches Financial App, Expands into Finance Without Banking License

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Swiss retailer Coop is expanding its financial services sector by launching a new financial app in collaboration with various Swiss banks such as Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and financial service providers like Vanguard. This move marks Coop’s return to the financial world, albeit under new conditions.

The app currently offers two basic services: payment and savings accounts with a debit card and the ability to withdraw cash at Coop stores. Additionally, it provides the option to save for retirement with different financial products in the pillar 3a area. Coop plans to expand these services with additional financial services in the coming months.

Despite this, Coop is not becoming a bank. It does not have a banking license, and its financial app serves as a platform for the products of the respective providers. For instance, a savings account contract is not concluded with Coop, but with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg. However, the accounts and pension solutions appear in the app in Coop’s design. This offering is not a digital reissue of the former Coop Bank, which Coop sold to Basler Kantonalbank in 2017, which subsequently renamed it Bank “Cler”.

Coop’s new venture differs from neobanks like “Yuh” or “N26”. Neobanks are either offerings from Swiss financial institutions with a banking license (Postfinance and Swissquote own “Yuh”) or from foreign providers with a European banking license (e.g., “N26”), recognized by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma). Coop, on the other hand, serves as a platform to distribute the products of the respective financial service providers, all of which have the necessary approvals. These companies can offer their product range to a larger customer base via Coop.

Coop emphasizes that it does not have access to account movements and does not use the data from the “Supercard” and the account movements for joint data evaluation. Customers can collect points for the “Supercard” in Coop stores using the finance app. However, the banks calculate the corresponding credit and transmit the total to Coop, where the points are credited.

The launch of this financial app by Coop is made possible by digitalization, allowing Coop to launch corresponding financial offers without a banking license, thanks to its partner companies. However, there is already considerable competition from purely digital financial offers in Switzerland.

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