Fintech Berlin

Berlin has no stock exchange or central bank head office to build a finance scene around, and its fintechs grew anyway. The Investitionsbank Berlin study found that Berlin fintechs raised about 535 million euros in 64 funding rounds in 2024, that three quarters of Germany's 32 fintech scale-ups valued at more than 100 million euros are based in the city, and that eight Berlin fintechs have each raised more than 100 million euros. Enterprise software now makes up 16.9 percent of Berlin's fintechs, up from 5 percent a year earlier.

The Fintech Times names what holds the city back: few large banks and financial firms nearby, since finance expertise sits in Frankfurt and Munich, strict rules that raise the cost of entering the market, and a hard search for staff with finance experience. Lower office costs than London or Paris and international talent work in Berlin's favor.

The House of Finance and Tech, short HoFT, opened in April 2024 as a partnership of the State of Berlin and the private sector, with the Investitionsbank Berlin, the Senate Department for Economics, the Berlin Finance Initiative and Berlin Partner behind it. The House of Finance and Tech is the Berlin fintech hub of the federal Digital Hub Initiative and works on financial wellbeing, on scaling fintechs and on bringing banks, fintechs, investors and regulators together. The House of Finance and Tech's CEO, Sebastian Schäfer, ran TechQuartier in Frankfurt for eight years before moving to Berlin.

A fintech in Berlin answers to the same national and EU rules as one in Frankfurt or Munich. BaFin licenses and supervises banks, payment institutions and investment firms from Bonn and Frankfurt; Berlin has no regulator of its own. Payment and open banking products work under the EU's PSD2, and a Berlin fintech that offers crypto services needs an authorization under MiCA.

A banking-as-a-service platform such as Solaris carries extra weight here: its bank customers rely on its license, so a problem at the platform can affect several brands at once. That is part of why DORA, the EU's digital operational resilience law, treats a bank's technology suppliers as part of its own risk management.

Berlin attracted 31 percent of all venture capital raised in Germany in 2024, according to Berlin Partner, about 2.2 billion euros, and counts more than 190 venture capital firms, more than 360 business angels and more than 70 accelerators. The Investitionsbank Berlin, the state-owned bank of the city, co-invests in early rounds through its startup programs.

The gaps are at both ends. The Investitionsbank Berlin study points to missing money in the pre-seed phase and to too little scale-up financing for Berlin fintechs to compete internationally.

FIBE, the Fintech Festival Berlin, is organized by Messe Berlin and fills CityCube Berlin for two days each April with a conference, an expo and networking for fintechs, banks, investors and startups. The Fintech Germany Award held its gala at the House of Finance and Tech, and HoFT runs its own FinWell Summit on financial wellbeing in December.

Payments people meet at Payment Exchange, the payments conference of Payment & Banking in late winter, and the blockchain side of the city gathers in June around the German Blockchain & AI Week and the Berlin Blockchain Festival at w3.hub.

Finance Loop started in Frankfurt and holds events in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg as well. In Berlin it is a meeting place for people who work at neobanks, brokers and banking-as-a-service platforms, alongside bankers, IT people and AI engineers from the wider finance sector.

Finance Loop is a founding member of the Bitcoin Bundesverband, which was formed in Berlin, its Bitcoin for Investors masterclass runs in Berlin, and its team supported the German Blockchain & AI Week in the city.

FIBE, the Fintech Festival Berlin, is the city's fintech conference and expo, organized by Messe Berlin at CityCube Berlin. FIBE runs for two days in April, with founders, investors and bankers on stage and in the hall; speakers apply through a call for content. Dates and tickets are on its own site.

By number of fintechs, yes: the Investitionsbank Berlin counts 189 active fintechs in Berlin, more than Munich and Frankfurt together. Franziska Giffey, then Berlin's economics senator, put it this way: "Frankfurt may be the capital of traditional banking, but when it comes to the future, Berlin is the center of the German fintech scene." The supervisors and the large banks stay in Frankfurt and Bonn.

At the House of Finance and Tech, whose events and RegCircle sessions on rules such as PSD3 bring banks, fintechs and regulators together, at FIBE in April and at Payment Exchange in late winter. Finance Loop lists its Berlin dates in the calendar on this page.