Lydia Solutions, founder of the Lydia payment application, announced on Wednesday the creation in France of an online deposit bank, with an interest-bearing account. Called Sumeria, it offers “a current account as effective as other digital services,” assures Cyril Chiche, president of Lydia Solutions. According to him, traditional players, including online banks, cannot achieve this, “because the deposit activity alone does not cover their structural costs”. “We therefore need the advent of a digital player who, like Uber, Airbnb or Spotify, transforms its sector thanks to a radically lighter cost structure,” he said in a press release.
The company had already launched a Lydia Accounts application in April which already has two million users but Sumeria will be the only “interest-bearing current account in France” in the current banking landscape, he assured. Sumeria offers to remunerate its customers’ current accounts at 2%, with a special offer of 4% limited to four months after the launch, i.e. a rate higher than that of the Livret A. “To date there are 500 billion euros which sleep nicely, unpaid, on the current accounts” of individuals in France, Cyril Chiche said at a press conference on Wednesday in Paris.
The company plans to invest 100 million euros and hire 400 people over three years with the aim of reaching five million customers within this time frame. Lydia already has 250 employees based in Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux and Lyon. Opening an account with a visa payment card is free, with no fees when paying abroad, but there is a premium version with a card with a higher limit and insurance that will be marketed at 99 euros per year.
The company has also requested approval as a credit institution and plans to “conquer Europe” by 2026, according to the press release. “We do not have a European banking brand, that is to say a bank that Germans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Irish can cite,” explained Antoine Porte, co-founder of Lydia, which primarily aims to Germany as the first step in its European expansion. The company achieved unicorn status in 2021, with a valuation of more than $1 billion.
