EXCLUSIVE – Known as one of the first technology companies in Europe to procure a German banking license, solarisBank has lofty ambitions for 2018.

That plan, according to Timo Weber, VP of strategy and internationalization, is to add 50 more partners over the course of the year.

“A big part of our effort this year will be focused on expanding our partners to 100,” Weber told Bank Innovation.

SolarisBank’s current roster of 50 partners is an impressive number, given that the company formally launched only in March 2016.

Based in Berlin, solarisBank provides infrastructure to enable B2B transactions such as payments, lending, and other digital banking activities via APIs and the cloud. Its customers fit into three categories: digital companies, fintechs, and regulated institutions such as banks and FIs. Most recently in December, Dutch bank ABN AMRO became a partner.

“The banking license is one of our greatest assets,” he said.

Through this banking license, which is applicable across the EU, solarisBank can provide its customers not only the banking infrastructure, but also their banking license as a part of that partnership.

This means that instead of having to partner with a technology provider and bank for the license, a fintech can partner with solarisBank, and accomplish both. Its German banking license, which solarisBank procured a few years ago from “one of Europe’s toughest regulators,” according to Weber, is applicable in 28 countries across Europe.

“2016 was very important because it was all about launching the company and setting up first processes and use cases. We had about 12 partners in 2016. And in 2017, that was the year of scaling and we reached 50 partners,” he said.

This year those partnerships will spread beyond the Europe. For example, it is currently working on joint-venture project with a major Asian bank. The nature of this project is still unclear.

“It’s still in research mode,” Weber said, declining to provide any additional information about the project.

In Europe, solarisBank is currently live in seven different countries. Earlier in March this year, it raised $70 million (€56.6 million) in funding round led by BBVA Bank and card processor Visa.

The fintech intends to use the funds for its geographic expansion, but also to add new products.

“We focus on expanding our offerings in Europe, we will carefully and thoughtful expand products on our lending piece,” he said.

It is not likely that solarisBank will be using blockchain technology in any of these new products.

“I can tell you that we are looking into a couple of blockchain initiatives. I am always convinced that when blockchain receives a critical mass, it will be very useful for us, but it hasn’t reached a critical mass yet,” he said.