Today, Ingka Investments received approval to become part-owner of Ikano Bank. This is a step on the way for IKEA to democratise the financial services offer and enabling more customers the opportunity to live a better life at home.
People’s lifestyles and behaviours are changing fast, driven by demographic shifts, digitisation, new ways of working and a desire for affordability and convenience. Customers are increasingly looking for seamless, affordable, and flexible financial services.
“For Ingka Group this is a decisive step into financial services, as a core part of our journey is to help make IKEA more affordable, accessible and sustainable,“ Mikael Palmquist, Deputy Retail Operations Manager at Ingka Group explains.
He continues: “IKEA Retail has set out a bold and ambitious financial services strategy as part of the overall IKEA transformation, with the objective of integrating and democratising financial services for a more affordable and convenient life at home for the many.”
Today, there is a vast number of people and businesses that are financially viable candidates for financing, but are yet underserved, for example students, freelancers, part-time workers, and many other groups. There is a plan to take a more dynamic approach to providing financial services, starting with a smaller amount and with time ladder up, or using new data sets that help understand the customers better.
“We welcome Ingka Group as part-owner and look forward to continue on our journey together to become a fully digitalised bank for the many people,” says Henrik Eklund, CEO, Ikano Bank.
Ingka Group and Ikano Bank have a longstanding commercial partnership, where Ikano Bank has served as IKEA Retail’s financial service provider across eight countries*. As an example, IKEA Retail UK have worked with Ikano Bank’s solutions for a long time to be able to launch a new financial service offer with a new digital application process for the UK customers. Since the initial launch in May, the feedback has been very positive from both new and existing customers.
The even closer partnership between Ikano Bank and Ingka Group enables further acceleration of our IKEA transformation and delivers accessible financial services for our customers.
Ingka Investments B.V. becomes part-owner of Ikano Bank AB (publ), previously wholly owned by Ikano S.A. Approvals from regulatory authorities have now been obtained and Ingka Investments B.V. has a 49% stake in the Bank through a directed issue of new shares by Ikano Bank. Ingka Investments B.V. has a call option to acquire the remaining shares at a later date.
*Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Sweden, UK.
