TBW - Mounir Laggoune (Finary): "1 billion euros in assets under management is our goal for the year"

The Big Whale: You raised €25 million in September 2025, with PayPal among the investors In concrete terms, what has this enabled you to do?

Mounir Laggoune: Initially, we really asked ourselves the question: are we building a bootstrap, self-sufficient company, or are we getting into a fundraising rationale? Our initial intention was to build a self-financing company.

But when we saw the opportunity - and, above all, who we were up against, i.e. banks and very established players with names that inspire confidence - we said to ourselves that we had to raise. Raising money is the first step towards creating confidence. In a way, raising so much money sends a reassuring signal to customers. That's also why we set out on this fundraising 'track'.

Your vision is this 'all-in-one' platform for finance. What exactly does that mean?

The goal is a single place to track your assets (which we already do, but we need to improve continuously), manage your budget (ditto, we want to be the best) receive recommendations, and then invest directly.

On recommendations, for example, with AI, we can do some very advanced things. To recommend, you need models and context. There are plenty of models. Context is proprietary data, and we have a lot of that. It's a major competitive advantage.

And then, once you've received recommendations, you don't want to be referred to another site to invest or to four different sites. Otherwise we recreate the original problem: fragmentation. Our ambition is to centralise everything on a single platform.

How much money is currently under management at Finary?

Our next milestone in terms of assets under management is €1 billion. That's something we need to reach this year, through life insurance, crypto, future PEA-type products, and the private management part.

You started with crypto. Today, how big a part does it play in your business?

In terms of turnover, around 15%. That's not huge, because we now have life insurance, private management, and also subscription: it's very difficult to do better than a SaaS model. Brokerage is also very profitable when there's volume.

And our crypto product isn't made for traders. It's made for long-term savers. Exchanges earn a lot by pushing leverage, spreads... that's not our approach. It's a product that we're continuing to improve, we're redoing part of the infrastructure, and it's very much appreciated by our customers.

In AUM, crypto carries more weight: around 35% currently. And yes, over the long term, in proportion, it's set to fall, because the rest will grow. But in absolute terms, it's still growing. And that validates our thesis: many of our customers started out with crypto, then moved on to Finary Life. They don't want to be on fifteen platforms, as long as the single platform really performs well.

Do you see any use for stablecoins in your half-crypto, half-traditional operation?

I think stablecoin will become invisible compared with fiat. You'll switch to stablecoin without knowing it.

Example: you want to make a transfer of 101,000 euros. Impossible in instant transfer above 100,000. So you convert to stablecoin, transfer, then switch back to fiat. For the customer, these are just rails. That's what 'magical' financial orchestration is all about.

We've experienced it internally: building a crypto product first, then an insurance product, is violent for the teams. You tell the same developers: "Now we're making an arbitrage that will materialise in three days". Whereas before, everything was instantaneous, 24/7. The world has changed. A lot of people have discovered investing via crypto - they're used to instantaneity.

Moreover, traditional markets are moving: extended hours, a desire for near-continuous trading... And when you look at life insurance, the "handbrake" is structural: it's designed not to trade. It's consistent, but out of step with expectations.

"No fintech is the B2C leader in two markets in Europe"

In terms of team, how big are you now?

We've gone from around 40 to 70 people in a relatively short space of time. And in the meantime, we've raised the bar. And we have a huge advantage: our visibility.

Today, 90% of the people who work at Finary were customers before they were recruited. People who have a Premium subscription, who already know the product, who arrive with high standards. Just yesterday, I was posting on the networks about a member of the support team: he was a customer before he joined us.

That changes everything: you don't have to explain the assignment, they're already doing it. And they're often the first to say, "This isn't working", "Why isn't there a PEA", "Why aren't you doing this". There is very strong support.

Finary centralizes a large amount of data, what security measures have you put in place to protect your customer database?

We don't store our customers' banking credentials: they are encrypted and kept by our licensed partners: Powens (licensed by Banque de France), Plaid and Flanks. We only have read-only access to accounts, which means no transaction can be initiated from our platform.

On the infrastructure side, everything is encrypted end-to-end (TLS 1.2 minimum, AES-256 for databases), hosted on GCP in Europe and protected by Cloudflare. We regularly conduct code audits and penetration tests with specialized offensive security firms, and we manage a bug bounty program.

Regarding data access, we only touch it when a customer requests support. Each access is logged and audited. Finally, our customers must enable 2FA if they invest via the platform, and we apply the travel rule which only allows withdrawals to an account in the holder's name on a CASP or verified wallet.

You are making France a priority, even though your product can be replicated throughout Europe. Why this choice?

Because this market is gigantic. There are over €6,000 billion in savings. And when people ask us "when are you going abroad?", I always point out this statistic: no fintech is the B2C leader in two markets in Europe.

So priority on France. Obviously the model is replicable: on crypto, we'll be on European licences, so it's transportable. But first, there's a multi-billion euro player to build in France. And only then will we go abroad.

Are your competitors the neobanks and neobrokers... or the traditional banks?

There are two types of competitor, but the stock is with the banks. Banks today do not deliver the value they promise their customers. Our customers are people who already have some assets and want to take stock of them. They often feel cheated because they have bought in-house products. There are also private banking customers, who have the assets but have a very old-fashioned, very "old-school" experience.

Neobanks and neobrokers are tiny in reality. They help to evangelise and expand the market, but the market share that is "stolen" between new entrants is small. The real issue is going after outstanding amounts from established players.

The requirement to obtain MiCA approval to continue offering crypto services is fast approaching (July 1, 2026). How far along are you?

It's ongoing, so unfortunately we won't be able to comment (laughs).

For you, MiCA is the most demanding of the approvals you're looking for?

The PSAN, at first, it was relatively straightforward even though there were already requirements. Then there was a reinforcement, then PSAN/MiCA approval, but very few have obtained it.

MiCA is a level comparable to that of an equity broker. A lot of texts have been taken up, and we can see that it communicates: at the end of the day, you really do become a broker. And that has one simple consequence: it's harder for a new player to enter the market. It favours the big players. Coinbase, paying a million for a licence, is an operating cost. A start-up that's just starting out doesn't necessarily have a million to put on the table.

So yes, it strengthens the ecosystem on the one hand, but it also prevents new entrants on the other. I'm not going to complain: I'm on the right side of the fence, with a business, customers, resources and a working relationship with the regulator. But we have to be clear: this limits competition.

And it also has an impact on the customer side: we're asking for more and more things, and customers often tell us the same thing: "You don't know why you're asking me for all this, it's a pain". We mustn't break the crypto experience.

Just on regulation: what has really changed your processes on the client side?

The big change is the Travel Rule. It has a very tangible impact for the customer, and it's applied in varying ways depending on the player. We apply it strictly.

Example: a customer makes DCA in bitcoin, say €2,000 a week, then wants to withdraw on their Ledger device. Ledger generates a receiving address, he withdraws, all is well. But as the withdrawal exceeds €1,000, he is asked to validate the address.

The following week, he does the same thing again. Except that Ledger - and this is good practice - generates a new address per transaction. So you have to revalidate each time. Has the text been designed for this use case? I doubt it.

And some customers tell us: "So I stop applying best security practices, and I use the same address". So if we pull the thread: aren't we breaking a fundamental principle of crypto security?

The problem is that with Bitcoin, it's particularly sensitive. And spoiler: for us, as for 80 to 90% of exchanges, the majority of volume is Bitcoin. So we have regulations that make sense, but in some cases they create a lot of friction, and sometimes a distortion of competition because not everyone applies them in the same way.

"The next crypto entrants in Europe? Banks, and almost exclusively banks"

In your opinion, will the new crypto entrants in Europe now be mainly banks?

Yes, banks will be coming in. The new "native crypto" players are over. The train has left the station. Either you're on it, or you'll never get back on.

Today, for there to be a credible new native crypto entrant, you'd need a major innovation... and I don't see it. So either it's the incumbent players, or it's the second-generation players, such as local PSANs, and now CASPs.

But "a new one", launching from scratch? For me, that's over.

And the banks that are arriving, are they really going to respond to the uses?

I think it's going to be mostly window dressing. They're doing it to attract attention or reassure customers. But who invests in crypto via their bank today?

And above all, there's a hypocrisy: these same banks are still blocking transfers to crypto platforms despite being regulated. We're PSAN-registered, and we get emails from customers: "My bank is blocking the transfer", or "My bank is making me sign a paper saying I'm aware I could lose everything". And sometimes it's even banks that communicate about their PSAN status... while putting obstacles in the way.

This is painful for our customers, but it's also an advantage: customers say to themselves "so it's not really my money any more if I can't do what I want with it". And they move their business elsewhere. What's more, execution is often unaffordable in banks.

So yes, it will increase the market, but to meet the uses of native crypto customers, I think it will mostly be pure players - and platforms like us that have integrated crypto as an asset class in its own right, not as a marketing slogan. We do the Travel Rule, we allow deposits and withdrawals, we apply end-to-end regulation: it's a real product.

You currently execute your trading operations via Bitstamp. Will you be diversifying your sources?

Yes, with MiCA, we won't be able to stay with just one partner. We'll have to do best execution, so we'll have several partners. We're preparing something "nice" with a very good partner, and we're going to multiply the partners, offer more pairs, and also do synthetic pairs.

Bitstamp remains our historical partner: if our crypto product exists, it's also because we've been able to work with them. In the meantime, Bitstamp has been bought by Robinhood, so there's a lot going on. But it's a highly regulated, historic exchange with lots of licences. It will remain a partner, even if we also want to look for more 'institutional' options.

And there's one constraint: for legal reasons, we can't operate on the new setup straight away without changing the programme of operations. Instead, announcements will be made around MiCA, and this will be visible to the user at that time.

Flowdesk-type prime brokers could be a candidate?

There are several options: market makers, prime brokers, custodians with integrated brokerage... Flowdesk is a great company, but they are very big ticket oriented. When your average order is €500, streaming is not the same model. To handle blocks of 1 million, yes, but that implies another setup and another counterparty risk.

We need players capable of absorbing continuous volume, on smaller sizes. But in spirit, yes: we're getting closer to a more institutional value chain.

"We internalise what is more valuable for the experience"

You offer yield via staking and lending. It's used a lot?

Yes, a lot. We have a huge opt-in rate: around three quarters of crypto customers opt in. And the bulk is Bitcoin, so there we're on lending.

Today, everything goes through Bitstamp. This is typically something we're going to evolve with the new setup. The aim is to get more value for customers: increase APYs, offer more options, and above all choose the right partner for the right pair. Some are excellent on Ethereum, others on lending: they're not the same business.

What we'll be doing is continuity: the products exist, but we'll be improving them in the post-MiCA world. And as there is some illiquidity on certain products (Ethereum staking in particular), migration will be gradual: new customers on the new product, old customers with the option to switch or maintain.

At heart, it's also an industrial logic: we're moving up the value chain, we're internalizing what's more valuable for the experience, and we have better control over our destiny. And yes, on yield products, there's also a margin issue: it's an important business model in the sector, even if few people are talking about it.

Finary managing a pool of Morpho lending, is that a serious hypothesis?

Yes, definitely. We're thinking about a lot of things: doing crypto portfolio management, recruiting a crypto manager, becoming a management company... We've got one foot in crypto and one foot in TradFi, so it's all on the table. Is that the immediate priority? No. But if there's clear customer demand, we'll look at it.

The demand exists: we see it at Revolut, Deblock, and others. And to offer truly original products, you have to control your licences, not just be someone's "agent", not outsource your tech. You have to be regulated and control the infrastructure.

Many TradFi players are hesitant, precisely, because there's a grey area around vaults curators. Do you think this will become clearer soon?

We've already been through a similar issue with yield in the PSAN era: at first it wasn't really framed, but then the regulator realised that it was an important customer issue, and started asking more and more questions. I think we're heading for the same trajectory.

And more broadly, what we've seen between MiCA and the world of investment firms is a transposition: we've taken many of the mechanisms of the equity markets and applied them to crypto. I think we're going to continue: it's all going to "fall into place". Crypto still has a speed premium, but normalisation is coming.

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