Operating as a SEPA participant with Mambu
Deblock, the first crypto wallet integrated with a current account that accepts both euros and cryptos as currency, had to build the ability to send and receive SEPA payments. By leveraging Mambu Payments, they achieved this, resulting in an FTE savings of 1.5.
- FTE saved
- weekly transfer increase per user
- proactive support from Mambu
DEBLOCK
About the customer
Deblock, the first current account that accepts both euros and cryptos as currency. Licensed as a digital asset service provider (DASP) with the French capital markets regulator AMF and as an electronic money institution by the French banking regulator ACPR, Deblock enables customers to manage their money as they wish.
The company's product usage is constantly growing, with an average 5% weekly increase in transfers per active user.
- Founded in 2022
- Represented in 12 countries
The challenge
Bridging the gap between the crypto and euro worlds
To compete with traditional banks, Deblock had to build the capabilities consumers expect from any bank, including the ability to send and receive SEPA payments. This was critical for Deblock, as it wanted to provide a state-of-the-art SEPA payment experience alongside its intrinsically excellent crypto payment experience.
From a previous position as Head of Core Payments and Banking Partnerships at Revolut, Deblock’s Co-founder and CFO, Aaron Beck, had firsthand knowledge of the complexities of integrating with a SEPA sponsor bank.
This experience allowed Deblock to identify key challenges such as the cumbersome process of implementing an XML solution using the sponsor bank's host-to-host connectivity, which would have consumed valuable engineering resources on tasks unrelated to customer outcomes.
To provide a state-of-the-art SEPA payment experience and French IBANs under its own bank code, Deblock decided to become a SEPA indirect participant from day one.
The solution
Modernising into a bank with the soul of a fintech
The implementation consisted of three different integrations: one for SEPA credit transfer, one for SEPA instant credit transfer, and a third for SEPA direct debit.
Deblock selected Mambu Payments to co-lead the entire integration project with the sponsor bank, from obtaining the documentation to developing the integration and the final testing and certification of the end-to-end integration.
Additionally, Mambu Payments built resilience into the integration by managing and addressing operational challenges with the sponsor bank, such as handling a lack of automated status updates and ensuring compatibility with SEPA’s character requirements.
“SEPA payments are obviously a critical product for Deblock. Users today expect to have the ability to make a bank transfer to and from their current account. It's a basic but critical feature. As we launched in France, we wanted to provide French IBANs to our customers from the beginning.”
- Anthony van der Pluijm, Head of Product at Deblock
The result
Modern, customer-centric financial products
By choosing Mambu Payments, Deblock saved approximately 1.5 FTE in engineering and operations that would have been needed to build and manage the SEPA arrangement. This freed up valuable resources that could be re-allocated to ensure optimum customer outcomes.
With the foundation in place, the Deblock team is now focused on building the final 10% of capabilities needed to achieve full parity with leading current account and crypto providers. This goal aims to ensure that the company can become their users’ primary provider in both domains.
Looking ahead, Deblock will be doubling down on the French market and is seeking a French crypto license to further advertise its product and expand across Europe.
“From our first discussion with the Mambu Payments team, they showed excellent expertise on bank connectivity and SEPA payments, and it became obvious that Mambu Payments was the best fit for us.”
- Anthony van der Pluijm, Head of Product at Deblock.
About Mambu Payments
Mambu Payments is a modern payments hub with native straight-through processing, orchestration, liquidity, and reconciliation. It delivers real-time, compliant payment flows into any core system. With managed connectivity to local and global schemes and composable payment workflows, financial institutions can launch faster, reduce costs and stay compliant at scale.
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