As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 4th of July, 2019, although for the past couple of years, mainly because of the enormous issues within and caused by the Agrokor crisis, the general speculation has been that the largest Russian bank, Sberbank, will eventually leave Croatia, and potentially even leave part of the country’s closer region, but on Thursday, Sberbank clearly made it known that they’re actively doing the opposite.
Sberbank has concluded an exclusive partnership with the Norwegian company Auka, and has jointly made the world premiere of a new mobile payment platform called Settle in Zagreb.
Csaba Soós, CEO of Sberbank Croatia, told Poslovni Dnevnik that in the last half a year, he has conducted a series of preparations for boosting Sberbank’s business in small and medium-sized businesses and expanding its offer to the people.
“Sberbank wants to digitally transform and offer new services and new user experiences on the Croatian market, hence our partnership with Auka’s Settle,” stated Soós.
Settle is a mobile application that allows for easy mobile payments. For citizens, it’s similar to KEKS Pay from Erste Bank, which already has more than 40,000 users, British Revolut, which has more than 20,000 users, and other such services that banks want to offer through Internet banking.
Daniel Döderlein, the founder and CEO of Auka, pointed out that this app is completely free to use.
Settle is searching for its place on the market as an alternative to POS terminals. As all cash registers in Croatia are fiscalised and connected to the Internet, Settle wants to allow for payment and invoicing straight through the internet.
“In order for a small business, a shop, a restaurant or a cafe to use Settle, it’s enough for a company that offers a fiscal cash register connects with us, traders can automatically generate an QR code at the till, a Settle user can pay for it immediately from the application, and then get a fiscalised receipt as confirmation of payment,” said Döderlein.
He added that by the end of the year, the service will be expanded to another three countries, and by the end of 2020, they want to be present on as many as ten markets. Looking at Auka’s announcements, it shows that Settle’s services will also expand to other aspects of business digitalisation such as e-bidding and e-invoicing.
Settle, allegedly, already has a contracted partnership in Croatia with at least four companies offering fiscal cash registers.
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