In a video interview with Kaupr, CEO Emelie Moritz shares insights on how Safello can evolve from a crypto broker focused on trading to becoming a more complete financial institution, or a crypto bank. Kaupr attempts to put the puzzle together.
Already when Safello presented its annual results earlier in February, Moritz stated that Safello is about to usher in a new era: A new business area, international expansion och cryptobanking. In and after our video interview with Emelie Moritz, we try more to understand what it means. Although, for competitive reasons, Moritz holds a portion of cards close to his chest, a picture begins to draw.
It may not be this topic that has dominated the headlines around Safello recently, but the company is in the process of finalizing a major upgrade of its technological infrastructure. This should both make it easier and faster to trade crypto, use more advanced features such as stop-loss, contribute to a smaller spread between buy and sell rates, and lower prices. Moritz and Safello believe that the new platform will be able to both help recruit new customers and to get existing customers to do more.
In video interviews, Moritz indicates a potential for a 20 percent increase in “retention,” ie where customers, after creating an account, continue to shop at Safello. A new technology platform will also make it easier to offer trading in multiple cryptocurrencies, which according to Moritz is also something customers appreciate in terms of increased trading activity. In the interview, the Safello boss says that the backend of the new platform will be ready in a month's time, and that it will then be ready for ongoing launches to customers, “pretty soon”, as she says.
In the interview, Moritz also says that already three years ago Safello started preparing for MiCA, the new European framework for crypto, and to become a “financial institution”, or a crypto bank. But then what does that mean? We think we got an important part of the answer, when we asked Emelie Moritz if Safello would bet on making their trading platform available in traditional banks, as a new distribution channel. She did not rule this out, but in the interview put more emphasis on another possibility: “What is interesting for Safello going forward is to build our product forward, and rather lay banking services in our product, and make it a really great overall experience for customers, who can both trade crypto 24/7, 365 days a year, and even enjoy banking services in Safello's app,” she said among others. else.
With a new technological infrastructure, and a strategy to evolve towards becoming a more complete financial institution, it may be possible to launch a new business area, for which Safello has ambitions. For competition reasons, Moritz was not specific, but when asked what it could be, such as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), tokenization or real-world assets, she answered “type all that”. Tokenization of stocks and mutual funds, she herself found exciting, “a little further ahead”. But she stressed that one of the strategic motivations for a new business area would be to establish “recurring revenue streams,” as a complement to the commission income from pure crypto trading.
We shot in the interview that this is something that other crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase, OKX, Bitpanda etc. have already been working on for a while. For example, Coinbase's “Subscriptions and services” business area has been growing quarter by quarter, while European crypto exchange Bitpanda has launched a distinct web3 strategy.
The Safello boss also himself believed in a development where crypto exchanges are in the process of evolving from being pure trading venues to becoming a larger ecosystem. “I think so. Although we have a core business that is crypto trading, there is a lot that can be done on it, such as working with stablecoins and leveraging the infrastructure for other areas of application.”
The 2025 roadmap also includes international expansion. Given the building blocks mentioned above, it might seem logical that this lies more towards the end of the year. Here Moritz is extra reticent about sharing information, for reasons of competition, but she says Safello has a strategy. The company looks at the maturity of the relevant markets, competitive conditions, demographics, economic development, etc. She also expressed that Safello is clearly capable of taking a leading position in the Nordic and Northern Europe, but that it will happen organically, as the company does not have an M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions strategy).
“I think Safello can go extremely far with what we have built up. I am convinced that we are uniquely positioned for the shift in the crypto market,” she says.
Below is a timeline of the video interview, topic by topic.
00:26 Introduction and welcome
00:57 Emelie Moritz's journey
02:19 Crypto Industry and Maturity
03.02 Crypto, US and Europe
04:40 Frames in the Nordics and Sweden
06:50 Position after 12 years
07:41 Contribution to growth
08:50 Security and security breaches
10:50 What about the products?
12:24 Customer Groups and Activity
13:42 Crypto and Banking
15:36 Safello as a crypto banker
16:41 New Technology Platform
18:28 New business area and growth
20:10 From crypto exchange to ecosystem
21:23 Blockchain technology in banking and finance
23:26 International expansion
25:20 Growth and consolidation in the Nordic region?
27:22 Safello well positioned?
In a video interview with Kaupr, CEO Emelie Moritz shares insights on how Safello can evolve from a crypto broker focused on trading to becoming a more complete financial institution, or a crypto bank. Kaupr attempts to put the puzzle together.
Already when Safello presented its annual results earlier in February, Moritz stated that Safello is about to usher in a new era: A new business area, international expansion och cryptobanking. In and after our video interview with Emelie Moritz, we try more to understand what it means. Although, for competitive reasons, Moritz holds a portion of cards close to his chest, a picture begins to draw.
It may not be this topic that has dominated the headlines around Safello recently, but the company is in the process of finalizing a major upgrade of its technological infrastructure. This should both make it easier and faster to trade crypto, use more advanced features such as stop-loss, contribute to a smaller spread between buy and sell rates, and lower prices. Moritz and Safello believe that the new platform will be able to both help recruit new customers and to get existing customers to do more.
In video interviews, Moritz indicates a potential for a 20 percent increase in “retention,” ie where customers, after creating an account, continue to shop at Safello. A new technology platform will also make it easier to offer trading in multiple cryptocurrencies, which according to Moritz is also something customers appreciate in terms of increased trading activity. In the interview, the Safello boss says that the backend of the new platform will be ready in a month's time, and that it will then be ready for ongoing launches to customers, “pretty soon”, as she says.
In the interview, Moritz also says that already three years ago Safello started preparing for MiCA, the new European framework for crypto, and to become a “financial institution”, or a crypto bank. But then what does that mean? We think we got an important part of the answer, when we asked Emelie Moritz if Safello would bet on making their trading platform available in traditional banks, as a new distribution channel. She did not rule this out, but in the interview put more emphasis on another possibility: “What is interesting for Safello going forward is to build our product forward, and rather lay banking services in our product, and make it a really great overall experience for customers, who can both trade crypto 24/7, 365 days a year, and even enjoy banking services in Safello's app,” she said among others. else.
With a new technological infrastructure, and a strategy to evolve towards becoming a more complete financial institution, it may be possible to launch a new business area, for which Safello has ambitions. For competition reasons, Moritz was not specific, but when asked what it could be, such as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), tokenization or real-world assets, she answered “type all that”. Tokenization of stocks and mutual funds, she herself found exciting, “a little further ahead”. But she stressed that one of the strategic motivations for a new business area would be to establish “recurring revenue streams,” as a complement to the commission income from pure crypto trading.
We shot in the interview that this is something that other crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase, OKX, Bitpanda etc. have already been working on for a while. For example, Coinbase's “Subscriptions and services” business area has been growing quarter by quarter, while European crypto exchange Bitpanda has launched a distinct web3 strategy.
The Safello boss also himself believed in a development where crypto exchanges are in the process of evolving from being pure trading venues to becoming a larger ecosystem. “I think so. Although we have a core business that is crypto trading, there is a lot that can be done on it, such as working with stablecoins and leveraging the infrastructure for other areas of application.”
The 2025 roadmap also includes international expansion. Given the building blocks mentioned above, it might seem logical that this lies more towards the end of the year. Here Moritz is extra reticent about sharing information, for reasons of competition, but she says Safello has a strategy. The company looks at the maturity of the relevant markets, competitive conditions, demographics, economic development, etc. She also expressed that Safello is clearly capable of taking a leading position in the Nordic and Northern Europe, but that it will happen organically, as the company does not have an M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions strategy).
“I think Safello can go extremely far with what we have built up. I am convinced that we are uniquely positioned for the shift in the crypto market,” she says.
Below is a timeline of the video interview, topic by topic.
00:26 Introduction and welcome
00:57 Emelie Moritz's journey
02:19 Crypto Industry and Maturity
03.02 Crypto, US and Europe
04:40 Frames in the Nordics and Sweden
06:50 Position after 12 years
07:41 Contribution to growth
08:50 Security and security breaches
10:50 What about the products?
12:24 Customer Groups and Activity
13:42 Crypto and Banking
15:36 Safello as a crypto banker
16:41 New Technology Platform
18:28 New business area and growth
20:10 From crypto exchange to ecosystem
21:23 Blockchain technology in banking and finance
23:26 International expansion
25:20 Growth and consolidation in the Nordic region?
27:22 Safello well positioned?
