Opera Limited (Nasdaq: OPRA) (“Opera”), one of the world’s leading browser providers is bringing new offerings across content, classifieds and fintech to its large user base of more than 350 million monthly active users.
Today, the Norwegian headquartered company announced completion of the acquisition of the Estonian-based company Pocosys, as well as an agreement to further take over Pocopay, its sister company, which holds a payment institution license and provides financial services in the European Union. With these acquisitions, Tallinn will become Opera’s second European hub for fintech services, following Gothenburg, Sweden.
“The way we use financial services is starting to change rapidly,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers and European Fintech at Opera. “We see a lot of potential for better and easier services. Needless to say we are excited about our future fintech plans associated with Pocosys and our existing brand.”
With a growing user base of more than 50 million monthly active browser users in Europe, Opera is already among the leading consumer technology companies in the region. A large and growing PC and smartphone user base is actively choosing to use Opera browsers rather than the default browsers that come preinstalled on their devices. With this acquisition, Opera seeks to add additional capabilities and skill sets to allow for future synergies between its browser and fintech businesses.
“We are very excited to join the Opera family,” said Oksana Tolmatshova, the CEO of Pocosys. “Opera is a leading European consumer technology company, and our solutions will allow Opera to further grow its unique product offering, entering new categories”.
The market conditions for the financial sector in Europe are changing rapidly. Open banking allows third party developers to build solutions and applications around financial institutions. It also makes it possible for new challenger banks and payment methods to emerge and provide new and better services.
“Estonia is a great place to attract talent for any European fintech efforts,” said Indrek Neivelt, Founder of Pocosys. “The country is among the most digitized countries in the world, and is a thriving center for fintech startups.”
The acquisition of Pocosys closed on January 17th and Opera has entered into a commercial relationship with Pocopay, pending a second closing upon approval by the Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).