Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank (BLKB) is supporting fintech start-up Kaspar& and is seeking a minority stake, according to a media release on Friday. The St Gallen-based company, a spin-off of HSG and ETH, has been on the Swiss market since the end of February 2022. Kaspar& was founded in 2020 by Jan-Philip Schade, Lukas Plachel, Sebastian Büchler and Lauro Böni.
With its app, the fintech offers a free checking account and payment options via prepaid Mastercard. As a unique feature, Kaspar& gives customers the opportunity of rounding up amounts during payment transactions and investing these minimum amounts in a portfolio of index funds and ETFs. This is intended to encourage saving and investing.
“Kaspar&’s solution impresses with its digital access, user-friendliness and automation of the investment business,” says BLKB CEO John Häfelfinger. “As a customer-focused bank, Open Finance solutions that are easy to integrate are the future for us. BLKB’s financial support lays the foundation for a long-term partnership.”
Kaspar& wants to expand its current product offering in the medium term. This includes, for example, the expansion of the recently rolled out insurance integration and the development of new services in retirement planning and donations, according to the statement.
