Kreditech Learns to Innovate Like a Startup, and Work Like a Bank

Kreditech’s high-flung office offers a spectacular, 360-degree view of its hometown of Hamburg. That is, when it is sunny. When Red Herring visited the fintech firm’s HQ earlier this year, the German city was enveloped in snow. One could barely see the next building–let alone the spires, ships and sights of a globally vital port city.

Its physical view impaired, Kreditech’s leadership were nonetheless looking outward–far outward–to a business model that includes rollouts in, among others, Poland, Mexico, Spain and Russia. Last week the company achieved official microfinance status in the latter, which has proved a notoriously difficult nut for fintech brands to crack (Kreditech launched its Russian business in 2013).

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