Zilch has taken a major step towards European expansion after acquiring Lithuanian lender Fjord Bank, securing a European banking licence in the process.
The London-based fintech has agreed to purchase Fjord Bank for $38m, according to people familiar with the deal. Fjord holds a European banking licence and has around $120m in assets, enabling Zilch to lend across the EU via regulatory passporting.
Zilch Co-Founder and Chief Executive Philip Belamant described the acquisition as a turning point for the business.
“This is the next major step for us, which is to start to look outside of the UK,” he said. An EU banking licence will allow Zilch “to passport consumer credit products across all of the countries by giving notice to each regulator. That means you can move much faster.”
Belamant added that the deal will also improve Zilch’s capital efficiency. “It brings us more capital efficiency as well, in terms of our cost base,” he said, as the company will be able to fund lending through customer deposits rather than relying solely on private investors.
In a LinkedIn post, Belamant said the acquisition “unlocks Europe”, allowing Zilch to expand without “multi-year local approvals, enabling faster rollout, clearer planning, and materially lower cost.”
He also pointed to the strategic benefits of holding a banking licence, stating: “We can now fund ourselves through retail deposits with greater access to wholesale funding rather than relying solely on equity and the private credit markets.”
The move follows Zilch securing a UK payments licence from the FCA last year, part of a broader push to reduce reliance on third parties and expand its product offering.
The acquisition could also accelerate Zilch’s path to public markets. “We can’t ignore the aspiration, which is for the business to be public,” Belamant said, adding that the deal allows the company “to get there much quicker and build the scale much faster.”
