Lena Hackelöer, Founder and CEO, Brite Payments

Today we're delighted to speak with Lena Hackelöer, Founder and CEO of Brite Payments. With nearly seven years at Klarna and leadership roles at Qliro Financial Services under her belt, Lena founded Brite in 2019 to solve one of Europe's most persistent payment challenges: fragmented account-to-account infrastructure. In this interview, she shares her vision for pan-European payments, why branded trust beats white-label models, and what trends will define the next chapter of FinTech.

My questions are in bold - over to you Lena:

Who are you and what's your background?

Before creating Brite Payments, I spent almost seven years at Klarna. One of the highlights of that time was helping launch Klarna in Germany to almost 20 million users. After Klarna, I became Chief Product and Marketing Officer, and later CEO, of Qliro Financial Services. I founded Brite Payments in 2019, drawing directly on what I'd learned building payment products at scale across different European markets.

What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?

I'm the Founder and CEO of Brite Payments. Day to day, that means setting overall company strategy, leading growth, and staying connected to the market and our customers.

Can you give us an overview of your business?

Brite is one of Europe's most established Pay by Bank providers, connecting merchants to more than 3,800 banks across 27 European markets. At the core is our Brite Instant Payment Network, which is a proprietary network that combines local processing schemes, such as SEPA Instant in the Eurozone and Faster Payments in the UK. That means a merchant can manage Instant Payments and Instant Payouts everywhere we operate through a single integration, rather than juggling multiple providers by market. Unlike many white-label account-to-account competitors, we remain a branded, visible party in every transaction, so both merchants and consumers have a trusted company to actually contact if they ever require support.

Tell us how you are funded?

Most recently, in 2023, we completed a $60 million Series A round led by London-based specialist B2B software investor, Dawn Capital.

What's the origin story? Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?

Having spent years building payment products across different European markets at Klarna and Qliro, I saw first-hand how fragmented account-to-account payments still were. Merchants needed a different provider and a different contract for almost every country, settlement times varied wildly, and in the white-label model most competitors use, there was no trusted party for a consumer to turn to if a payment went wrong. I founded Brite in 2019 to fix that by building a single pan-European network that merchants could integrate once and use everywhere.

Who are your target customers? What's your revenue model?

Our merchants span e-commerce, travel, nonprofits, financial services, gaming, and utility payments across Europe, and we're now bringing that same offering to UK merchants, including those who also sell into Europe and want a single provider for both. Brite is always free for consumers and merchants are charged a fee per transaction.

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?

I'd want harmonisation of payment and regulatory standards across Europe, rather than the patchwork of local rules providers have to navigate market by market today.

What is your message for the larger players in the Financial Services marketplace?

Account-to-account payments aren't a niche alternative anymore; they're now a growing share of European and UK commerce. The providers who will rise to the top are the ones building branded trust into every transaction and delivering top-tier customer support, not just offering the cheapest way to move money from one account to another.

Where do you get your Financial Services/FinTech industry news from?

Financial Times, Sifted, and LinkedIn are places where I read a lot of industry news.

What FinTech services (and/or apps) do you personally use?

• Avanza
• Klarna
• Various online trading platforms

Finally, let's talk predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?

• I think we'll keep seeing account-to-account payments displace card dependency across Europe, driven less by any single argument like sovereignty and more by simple convenience for consumers and merchants alike.
• I'd also expect growing merchant demand for a single, pan-European payment infrastructure, rather than piecing together different providers market by market.
• It also wouldn't be a predictions list without a mention of AI. The development being agentic payments is not yet there but I'm curious to see how it develops and that paradigm shift it may influence.

Many thanks to Lena for taking the time to share her insights with FinTech Profile. You can learn more about Brite Payments on their website.