Tellow redefines Dutch bookkeeping with banking services from Swan

Small companies & freelancers can create IBANs and order Mastercard payment cards

Amsterdam, Thursday, November 10th, 2022 - in partnership with Swan made it possible to open accounts and order payment cards from their bookkeeping software suite. Tellow is the first bookkeeping software company in The Netherlands to integrate accounting, banking, and tax filing from one single platform. A game changer for customer-friendliness and technological innovation in bookkeeping, says Thomas Vles, CEO of Tellow. Combining banking and bookkeeping is an essential step to further automate and simplify bookkeeping and taxation for entrepreneurs.

Thomas Vles, CEO of Tellow: “International players are already moving towards combinations of banking and bookkeeping, but it will be the local companies that will win the Dutch market. We are the only player in The Netherlands with our own banking accounts and an integration with the Dutch Tax Authorities. Our users can handle administration, file their tax statements, and pay their taxes all from one platform.”

Full banking functionality

Tellow will initially offer ’s European IBANs with the French prefix FR, and local NL IBANs follow next year. For users, there will be no difference in functionality or costs in regard to the prefix. Tellow and Swan offer real-time transfers within the Eurozone, and there is support for SEPA direct debits and payment request links. Users have the same basic functionalities as traditional banks in the Netherlands. Tellow can onboard freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small companies.

Global coverage with Mastercard

The physical and virtual payment cards are issued by Mastercard, with worldwide coverage, and are compatible with ApplePay and GooglePay. After finishing compliance checks, users can have a working payment card on their phones with just a few clicks. Physical cards can be ordered and will be delivered within three business days.

Accounts for all nationalities

Tellow and Swan will offer banking services to all companies residing in the Netherlands, including their founders, owners, and teams. There will be no systematic blockage of certain countries or nationalities. Ukrainian freelancers and entrepreneurs are especially encouraged to get in touch, as Tellow empowers them to start new businesses hassle-free in The Netherlands.

Banking-as-a-service

Tellow works with Swan, a European Banking-as-a-Service provider licensed by the ACPR (Bank of France). Founded in 2019, the company has rapidly scaled up to nine countries with an annualized transaction volume of nearly 3 billion euros. Tellow is the launching partner in the Netherlands.

“Swan is a strong partner with a leading position in Europe in terms of security, stability, and innovation. It is important that customers are fully protected and always have access to their Tellow banking environment and for this, a reliable partnership with Swan is essential.” says Vles.

Credit lines up to 150K

Tellow has been offering business loans and invoice financing from its own finance entity for some time. With the release of banking services, Tellow will also add credit lines to their own suite of financing products. Entrepreneurs can apply for a loan at the push of a button and usually do not have to provide additional documentation, as most of the information such as taxes and bank statements has already been collected in the platform. The maximum loan amount will also be increased at the same time as the launch of the banking function, for all financing the maximum is now 150,000 Euro per loan.

Innovation

Combining banking and accounting has more advantages than having a single login. The reason for Tellow to integrate banking has to do with the technological possibilities it brings. Tellow already uses machine learning to categorize purchase invoices and receipts, but with real-time transactions, Tellow can also automatically reconcile them. In addition, users can submit a declaration to the Tax Authorities at the push of a button, and have any open tax amount paid automatically from their integrated Swan account.

“We’re excited to see Tellow bring Dutch bookkeeping into the future! With embedded banking, Tellow is empowered to build a truly seamless experience, which is great for their users and will also contribute to the health of the company. At Swan, we are making this easier for European companies, and Tellow is exactly the kind of company we’re proud to support!” says Nicolas Benady, CEO of Swan.
 

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About Tellow

Tellow is an automated and self-learning bookkeeping program specially designed for small businesses and freelancers. By making accounting understandable and easy, Tellow gives its users complete control over their finances. Tellow offers services in accounting, taxes, loans, and banking.

The apps allow users to send quotes and invoices and keep track of their administration. Receipts and invoices are simply scanned with a mobile phone, after which the machine learning system books them automatically on the relevant ledger. Every quarter, the VAT return is submitted in one click via the unique integration with the tax authorities, after which it can be paid automatically via the user’s own Tellow account.

Tellow serves more than 60,000 freelancers and small businesses in the Netherlands.

About Swan

Founded in 2019, Swan is a European fintech and innovation leader in embedded finance. Swan’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is the easiest way for companies to embed banking features. Via Swan’s simple APIs, European companies can integrate banking services (accounts, cards, and IBANs) quickly and easily into their own product.

The fintech processes over 200 million euros of transactions per month, for 60+ companies across ten European countries. Swan has over 100 employees and is led by fintech experts and experienced entrepreneurs: Nicolas Benady, Nicolas Saison, and Mathieu Breton. The company was founded together with the startup studio eFounders and has received growth capital from leading VC investors such as Creandum and Accel.

Tellow is Swan’s first customer in The Netherlands. Customers in France include French retail group Carrefour, accounting software provider Pennylane, and cash flow management specialist Agicap. In Germany, customers include Ride Capital, the German fintech for tax-optimized investing, financial software specialist Airbank, and payment solutions provider Denario. Swan is a Mastercard principal member and a licensed financial institution, regulated by the ACPR.