Press

Highlights 

• Michael Eidel appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Yapeal 
• Thomas Hilgendorff remains with the company as Chief Commercial Officer
• Successful completion of financing round 
• Growth strategy supported by existing and new investors 
• Dominik Bollier and Christoph Burkhard join the board of directors

Zurich, September 2, 2024 - Swiss Fintech company Yapeal has appointed Michael Eidel as the new Chief Executive Officer. Michael Eidel brings extensive international experience from leadership positions in financial institutions and technology companies. At the same time, the company announced the successful completion of a financing round, attracting new investors and strengthening the board of directors. With the increase in capital, Yapeal can advance its strategic realignment and growth phase with full force.

Yapeal announced today the appointment of Michael Eidel as the new CEO. He brings extensive experience from listed financial institutions and technology companies. Most recently, he served as CEO at a financial technology company in Australia, where he drove the strategic repositioning and expansion of the company and successfully introduced an innovative technology platform for corporate clients to the market. Other positions in his career included leadership roles in commercial banks and board mandates at FinTechs in Australia and Switzerland. Michael Eidel already played a role in shaping Yapeal's strategic realignment over the past year. 

Michael Eidel succeeds Thomas Hilgendorff, one of the co-founders of Yapeal, who will continue to serve as Chief Commercial Officer in the company. In this role, Thomas Hilgendorff will focus on commercial business development and the expansion of strategic partnerships. 

"We are very pleased to welcome Michael Eidel as the new CEO of Yapeal," said Werner Vontobel, Chairman of the Board of Yapeal. "With his extensive international experience in the financial and technology sectors, he will play a crucial role in driving forward our strategic realignment and future growth of Yapeal." 

"I am excited to join the Yapeal team and lead the company successfully into the future with the great employees," said Michael Eidel on his appointment. "Together, we will focus consistently on the growing market for Embedded Finance solutions tailored to corporate customers and their end customers. The strategic alignment based on Yapeal's unique Digital-First platform will enable us to accelerate our growth and take a leading role in the Swiss Embedded Finance market in the medium term."

At the same time, the company announced the successful completion of a financing round with existing and new investors. This enables Yapeal to consistently implement its strategic realignment and focused growth strategy in the rapidly growing market for Embedded Finance solutions for corporate customers and their end customers.  

Existing strategic investor and ERP provider Abacus reinvested in the financing round. "Abacus has already significantly benefited from Yapeal's strategic focus on Embedded Finance solutions for corporate customers over the past year and is convinced of the potential of their Digital First platform. Through continued close collaboration with Yapeal, we aim to enable our customers to benefit from the latest innovations in automated accounting and significantly increase their efficiency", said Claudio Hintermann, CEO of Abacus.

Dominik Bollier, Christoph Burkhard, and Markus Granziol have joined as new anchor investors. Dominik Bollier and Christoph Burkhard were also elected to the board of directors of Yapeal.


About YAPEAL 

Yapeal is a Swiss Fintech company founded in 2018 with the first Fintech license in Switzerland. With its unique Digital First platform, Yapeal offers seamlessly integrated financial services (Embedded Finance Solutions) to companies and their end customers. These solutions enable companies to generate more revenue with the same customers, improve the customer experience, increase efficiency, and boost profitability. Yapeal is headquartered in Zurich. 

Press contact: pr-media@yapeal.ch

Between 40,000 and 50,000 companies are founded in Switzerland every year. The companies required for this, which are usually still done in paper-based format, make founding a company time-consuming and tedious. In cooperation with DeepCloud and Yapeal, the start-up platform Hoop has succeeded in making incorporation process completely digital and thus in setting up companies quickly and easily. Company founders throughout Switzerland therefore benefit from this.

On 6 April 2023 at 9.30 a.m., Pascal Huber, Managing Director of the eastern Swiss trust company Breitenmoser-Edelmann Treuhand AG, started the digital meeting to found the start-up SpeedGo AG. He prepared the relevant documents on the digital foundation platform Hoop. All the founding documents were signed digitally by the founders of SpeedGo at their different workplaces. At 10.00 a.m., the money was deposited in the capital deposits account of the fintech Yapeal. By 10.15 a.m., all documents had been digitally signed by all parties and digitally transmitted to the notary for the incorporation.  Three hours later, the notary started checking the documents and then signed them digitally himself. At 2 p.m., all documents required for the foundation of SpeedGo were again digitally transmitted to the commercial registry office.
The entire incorporation process, which usually takes several weeks or even months in Switzerland, was completed in a record time of around six hours.

Six working days after the first meeting, the company SpeedGo was registered in the Zurich Registry of commerce. After opening a business account with Yapeal, the company is now fully operational and can receive and send invoices.

"I was surprised myself at how conveniently, easily and quickly the whole thing went through," comments Pascal Huber, visibly pleased with the premiere. Silvio Enzler, COO of Hoop, adds: "We have launched a new era in company foundation, which is characterised by digitalisation, speed and simplicity". Claudio Hintermann, CEO of DeepCloud, is pleased to say: "We are proud to make an important contribution to the simplification of start-ups. Without DeepID and DeepSign technologies, such a fast and end-to-end process would not have been possible." Yapeal is also proud to be part of Switzerland's first end-to-end digital company formation. "Our real-time services enabled the immediate opening of the capital deposit account," says Thomas Hilgendorff, CEO of Yapeal.

The Registry of commerce of the Canton of Zurich refers to the foundation and registration of SpeedGo SA, which was carried out digitally from A to Z in cooperation with Schmidhäusler Rechtsanwälte SA, as "a milestone on the way to fully digitalised document submission for the incorporation of a company".

The Hoop platform is currently available as a beta version to 20 fiduciaries. In June of this year, it will be available to all interested entrepreneurs.

About Hoop

Hoop is a Swiss platform that fully digitalises the entire process of company incorporation and the mutations in the Registry of commerce.
Hoop Corporate Services SA, based in Lugano, was launched in 2022.

EF Switzerland, the world's largest private language travel provider, and FINTECH company YAPEAL are entering into a strategic partnership. EF language students have the ideal digital wallet for their stay abroad with YAPEAL.

• EF language students benefit from the best exchange rates without fees

• EF students have YAPEAL, the ideal way to pay for their language study abroad.

• EF language students and parents can manage finances together

Zurich, January 12, 2022 - In the coming weeks, countless students will be planning their language study trips in a foreign country. EF (Education First), the largest private provider, and YAPEAL are partnering to offer EF customers the ideal financial solution for their stay abroad.

What are the financial challenges? Exchanging money and withdrawing cash abroad usually costs a tremendous amount. Depending on the card and provider, high fees may apply. With YAPEAL, language students have the perfect deal. It knows no hidden fees, costs for cash withdrawals, bad exchange rates and other surcharges. Maximum transparency and simplicity are at the heart of the Swiss FINTECH.

Because YAPEAL's service is ideally suited to the needs of language students, EF and YAPEAL have decided to enter into a close collaboration. Daniel Bänziger, Market Development Lead, says: "During a stay abroad, it is important to keep an eye on your finances. We offer a unique proposition for language students because it's secure, transparent and affordable."

Especially for younger language students (under 18), YAPEAL is excellent because they are usually supported by their parents. With YAPINI, they have the ideal bag money account to manage their finances together with their parents. With YAPINI, young students have these benefits:

• their own VISA debit card

• Parents can see the account balance in the app

• Parents can transfer money in real-time at any time

• Standing orders can be set up

• The account cannot be overdrawn Spending limits can be set

• If the card is lost, it can be blocked via smartphone

Karin Ellike, EF's Marketing Manager, says: "Optimal preparation for a language study trip also includes organizing the finances during the trip. With our partner Yapeal, we can offer our customers an ideal solution in the area of finances."

As part of the partnership, YAPEAL will be present on EF's communication channels, accompanying them on and offline.

YAPEAL is the first financial services provider in Switzerland to offer a 100% digital solution for a customer/account relationship for corporate clients. Opening an account usually only takes a few minutes. Complicated forms and a trip to a financial institution are a thing of the past.

YAPEAL also offers a 100% digitalized expense process for corporate clients in collaboration with Abacus. Digital submission of expenses in real time (no more tedious preparation of expense reports at the end of the month), digital and paperless processing of expenses in the company and automated payment of expenses, also in real time. End-to-end digitalization of the expense process, unique in Switzerland and real added value for companies.

Together with Abacus, YAPEAL offers corporate customers an account integrated into the Swiss payment system and enables cheaper, faster and more transparent transfers - in the YAPscheme (YAPEAL Payment Scheme) around the clock and in real time.

Zurich, 7 October 2021: YAPEAL offers fully digitalized services for corporate clients in Switzerland as of yesterday.

In many areas, the Swiss corporate client business of financial institutions is a long way from utilizing the digital opportunities that would offer companies added value and offering them to customers. Many things still correspond to the manual and time-consuming processes that have been in place for decades.

With yesterday's launch, YAPEAL, together with Abacus, is offering basic functionality in an initial phase with the 100% digital onboarding process for companies, a 100% digitized expense process and cheap, fast and transparent payment transactions, which will be expanded in further stages in the near future.

Yesterday, the customer/account opening of a public limited company, including a first payment, took place live in front of more than 100 Abacus trustees. The fully digitalized process took less than 15 minutes.

Thomas Hilgendorff, CEO at YAPEAL: "We are very pleased to be able to offer the first solutions with fully digitized and integrated end-to-end processes for corporate clients based on our digital platform for embedded finance developed in Switzerland. This is just the beginning, more to come."

A milestone in the history of the Erste Liga: With the Swiss fintech YAPEAL, the division gets a title sponsor for the first time.

After the presentation of the official ball partner Uhlsport, the First League comes up with a next success story: YAPEAL takes over the title sponsorship of the Erste Liga. The official language: "First League of the Swiss Football Association presented by YAPEAL". The sponsorship was agreed for the next three seasons.

The Swiss company operates a financial app based on a Swiss account that enables its customers to pay, transfer and withdraw money online and offline anywhere in the world. And all this at transparent and fair prices. CEO Thomas Hilgendorff explains why YAPEAL decided to join the premier league: "Our mission is to create a seamless experience for our customers in their everyday financial lives. We put all our passion into this and ensure that finance is fun. The future collaboration with the association, the clubs and the players in the Premier League is a very comprehensive commitment for us to make our sustainable values as well as our services known to a broader population in Switzerland and to bring digital financial services closer to people."

Patrick Schöni, Head of Corporate Development, adds, "The Local Heroes of the First League are a perfect fit for our clientele, the Yapster community. Together we want to achieve something big and reach the ambitious goals, we can only do that as a team, where we encourage and support each other. We're thrilled to be working together to support ambitious Swiss grassroots sports."

The cooperation with YAPEAL was initiated by STARC Marketing & Sports GmbH and was a premiere with the conclusion of the contract. The fact that the partnership came about at all cannot be taken for granted in economically complicated times. For the first time in its history, the First League now has a presenting partner - undoubtedly a milestone.

For Samuel Scheidegger, President of the division, this fits perfectly into its strategy for the future: "The Premier League wants to position itself even more professionally and innovatively. Our external image will be further strengthened with a deal like this. The fintech YAPEAL stands for the future in the finance industrie and so we also want to present ourselves as a modern department in Swiss football with the First League." Urs Reinhard, member of the committee, added: "We are convinced that the partnership with YAPEAL will provide further impetus for the marketing of the entire league and support our clubs in their mission for top-level football in the region."

YAPEAL supports the league as well as its clubs both financially and through crowd-funding activities. The company intends to raise awareness of clubs and players through various online and offline measures.

The First Division, consisting of the Promotion League and three groups of the 1st Division with a total of 58 clubs, is the pinnacle of breadth in Swiss soccer. It thus combines top-level sport with amateur football and reaches all of Switzerland's language regions. The players, coaches and officials of the teams are tangible and close to the regions. For YAPEAL, this is an ideal platform to achieve nationwide awareness in the country.

The First League of the Swiss Football Association

As a separate department, the Premier League organizes the competitions of the third-highest (Promotion League) and fourth-highest (1st League) divisions in Swiss football. It is the link between professional and amateur football. The First Division plays a decisive role in the promotion of young talent in Swiss football. In recent years, the division has positioned itself attractively with its "Local Heroes - One of Us" campaign and built up both an online portal and various content and video services, expanding its media reach to more than 80 million impressions.

FACTS & FIGURES
58 teams
840 season games
> 200,000 spectators on site in the stadiums
> 84,000,000 media reach

Swiss Football Association
Worbstrasse 48
3074 Muri

www.el-pl.ch

Jérémy Manière
Head of the office
maniere.jeremy@football.ch

+41 31 950 82 00
+41 78 747 55 98

YAPEAL AG
Max-Högger-Strasse 6
CH-8048 Zurich
www.yapeal.ch

Patrick Schöni
Head of Corporate Development
patrick@yapeal.ch
Press contact:
pr-media@yapeal.ch

STARC Marketing & Sports GmbH
Obere Zollgasse 10
3072 Ostermundigen
www.starcmarketing.com

Reto Wenger
Owner/CEO
rw@starcmarketing.com

YAPEAL Partners with Wise to Offer Customers More Affordable and Faster International Transfers

• YAPEAL customers can now access Wise’s lightning-fast and low-cost international money transfers directly from their YAPEAL account without leaving the YAPEAL app.

• The partnership allows YAPEAL customers to make international money transfers to over 80 countries at significantly lower costs than traditional financial institutions in Switzerland.

Zurich/London, June 22, 2021. YAPEAL is partnering with Wise, the global technology company that develops leading solutions for worldwide money transfers, to provide its customers with cheaper, faster, and more transparent international transfers.

Starting today, YAPEAL customers can access Wise’s lightning-fast and low-cost international money transfers directly from their YAPEAL account without leaving the YAPEAL app. The costs are often lower than those of traditional financial institutions in Switzerland. At launch, YAPEAL customers can send money worldwide to over 80 countries, including the USA, UK, Germany, and France.

The partnership with Wise enables YAPEAL to be one of the first in Switzerland to offer its customers international money transfers without exchange rate markups. Transfers abroad via Wise are always carried out at the mid-market exchange rate, the same rate found on Google or Reuters.

Daniel Capraro, Chief Product Owner at YAPEAL, said, "We are excited to offer our customers the convenience and cost-effectiveness of international transfers within the YAPEAL app in partnership with Wise. Starting today, YAPEAL customers can make worldwide transfers, ideally in real-time."

Abid Mumtaz, Global Head of Wise for Banks says: "We are delighted to be working with Yapeal to jointly create an even better financial experience and make fast and transparent money transfers available to even more people in Switzerland. What matters to us at Wise is how much money our customers save when they use Wise. Today it is already one billion pounds per year. With the new partnership in Switzerland, we will further increase this figure."

About YAPEAL

Yapeal is a Swiss fintech company founded in mid-2018 with the first fintech license in Switzerland. YAPEAL offers digital financial services embedded in the daily lifestyle and working environment of private and corporate customers. The services are primarily offered via the YAPEAL app on smartphones, with a browser version currently under development. All services such as payment transactions, the YAPEAL debit card (VISA), pillar 3a powered by Vontobel, foreign payment transactions powered by WISE and much more are integrated in a user-friendly app. YAPEAL is 'digital to the core', which means that all information and data is processed in real time. YAPEAL customers (YAPSTER) have all information available anywhere and at any time in real time. YAPEAL is independent of other financial institutions and, thanks to the possession of all the necessary licenses for business operations, is agile and fast in its decisions and implementation. YAPEAL has developed both the YAPEAL app and the back-end functions itself in Switzerland. Operations also take place entirely in Switzerland. YAPEAL's strategic investors are the investment house Vontobel and the ERP manufacturer Abacus. YAPEAL employs around 50 people and is headquartered in Zurich.

Press contact: pr-media@yapeal.ch

About Wise

Wise is a global technology company that has developed the best solution to move money around the world. With the Wise account, individuals and businesses can hold money in over 50 currencies, conduct international transfers, and spend globally. Financial institutions and corporations also use this technology, which is based on a novel international payment network that aims to one day provide borderless payment capabilities for everyone, everywhere. Wise's mission is to make life easier and help people save money. Founded by Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann, Wise started in 2011 under the name TransferWise. Today, Wise is one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world, having raised over one billion US dollars in primary and secondary funding rounds from leading global investors.

Ten million people and businesses use Wise, sending over five billion euros across borders every month. This results in annual savings of more than one billion euros.

Press contact: Thomas Adamski | thomas.adamski@transferwise.com

• Enrico Bauer resigned as COO and member of the Executive Board of YAPEAL AG as of April 30. resigned

• On June 7, 2021, Thomas Wechsler will take over as COO in charge of Operations and will be appointed to the Executive Board of YAPEAL AG

• Thomas Wechsler joins YAPEAL AG from Neue Aargauer Bank AG (NAB), where he was a member of the Executive Board and COO until the bank's integration into Credit Suisse.

Zurich June 7, 2021. Thomas Wechsler (49), will take over as Head of Operations at YAPEAL as of June 7, 2021. He succeeds Enrico Bauer, who has decided for personal reasons to step down and leave YAPEAL as of April 30, 2021.

Thomas Wechsler has held various management positions at NAB since 2009, including the last few years on the Executive Board as Head of Department Central Customer Advisory / COO and previously as Head of Department Online and Retail Customers. Before joining NAB, Thomas Wechsler was responsible for Business Development Private Clients Switzerland and Head of Strategic Planning & Communication at Credit Suisse. Prior to that, he was a business consultant at an international management consultancy.

Thomas Hilgendorff, CEO YAPEAL: "On behalf of the management, I would like to thank Enrico Bauer for his very successful commitment to YAPEAL, which, among other things, enabled the first fintech license in Switzerland. We regret his decision and wish him all the best for his professional and personal future. We are pleased that with Thomas Wechsler we could win a proven expert with great experience for this position. Through his previous work, he is familiar with the challenges of digitizing processes in finance for better customer experiences and more effective services, as well as dealing with an agile organization. Thomas Wechsler not only has the technical and strategic know-how, but also the leadership and personal profile to significantly develop YAPEAL's customer-focused services."