FIBR, the European digital bank previously known as Amsterdam Trade Bank (ATB), announced on Tuesday the appointment of Mount Street to manage its €211 million legacy shipping and trade and commodity finance portfolio.
This used to be ATB’s trademark lending specialty.
This transaction is a blueprint for regulated banks or insurance companies seeking to transform
Now, as FIBR completes its digital transformation into a platform bank focused on small and medium-sized enterprises, it sees outsourcing to a third party as a good way to switch off high fixed-cost risk-management and loan-management systems for these old assets.
Oren Bass, chief executive of FIBR, told Euromoney when discussing the transformation last year, that its ambition is to have a €500 million book of SME loans by the end of 2022.
“This is not a startup,” Bass told us, “this is, in effect, a scale-up.”
That’s still a big shift for a small bank.
Stephan Plagemann, chief financial officer of Mount Street Group and head of Mount Street Portfolio Advisers, the division which will manage the old ATB book, stated: “This transaction is a blueprint for regulated banks or insurance companies that are seeking to transform their operations, technology use and cost base, in this case for a legacy business enabling FIBR to fully concentrate on the European SME market.”
