Fintech Daydreaming · 2026-05-21 · 47 min
In this episode of Fintech Daydreaming, Ville and Pål are joined by Riikka Laine-Tolonen, CEO of S-Pankki: a bank that started from grocery shopping and somehow ended up managing billions. Riikka walks us through the origin story of S-Pankki - born from a retail cooperative, supercharged by the famous S-bonus, and launched just in time for the 2008 financial crisis (great timing, obviously). Fast forward 18 years, and it’s now one of Finland’s fastest-growing banks with 3.4 million customers. We get into: .- Why building a bank on top of a loyalty program actually works .- The reality of being a “challenger” bank… with full regulatory baggage .- The Handelsbanken Finland acquisition and what it unlocked .- And how S-Pankki is quietly moving into wealth management and private banking Which raises the obvious question: can a “bonus bank” really win over high-net-worth clients?
Legacy, Drones and Banking with Erik Åkesson78 / 100Live from the Nordic Fintech Summit | Nordic Fintech Highlights May 2026AI Agents, Bank Dinosaurs and Bluetooth Teeth | Nordic Fintech Highlights April 2026Tap, Merge, Repeat! with Baard Slaattelid from Vipps MobilePayBuy Now, Panic Later, The Embedded B2B Edition | Nordic Fintech Highlights March 2026