Leading FinTech startup Viva Republica receives preliminary approval for a digital bank license

Viva Republica, S. Korea’s leading FinTech company operating mobile financial services Toss, announced today that it received preliminary approval for a license to operate a digital bank from the Financial Services Commission of Korea.

With the approval, Toss Bank will become only the third digital bank in Korea with a license to operate banking services without a physical branch network. Toss Bank is expected to begin operation soon after gaining the final approval of the license in the first half of 2021.

As a challenger bank for the “underbanked,” Toss Bank will build a frictionless and fair way to manage money, fulfilling the needs of individuals and small business customers, including those with thin files and mid-range credit scores.

Valued at $2.2 billion in a recent funding round, Viva Republica owns Toss, a mobile finance app providing over 40 financial services ranging from money transfer, financial dashboard, credit score management to payments, with $48 billion of run-rate transaction volume per annum. It has more than 16 million registered users.

Toss Bank is expected to innovate and disrupt the financial services sector with its world-class user experience and groundbreaking offerings, as Toss has done before. Digital bank license allows Toss to offer current accounts, credit and loan products, and a wide array of financial services to individuals and businesses in one of the fastest-growing digital banking markets in the world.

“Toss has already become the leading financial super app in Korea. With digital bank license, we will be able to broaden our product offering even so that we can accelerate our mission to innovate the financial industry,” said SG Lee, CEO of Viva Republica.

About Viva Republica, Inc.
Viva Republica, Inc. launched Korea’s foremost P2P money transfer service Toss in 2015. The service has become one of the world’s fastest-growing financial apps, with a transaction run-rate of $48 billion. Complementing its P2P money transfer and payments system, Toss now delivers a full suite of financial services, including banking services, financial dashboard, credit score management, and investment products. The company was ranked 29th in KPMG’s 2019 Fintech 100. Based in Seoul, Viva Republica is backed by the world’s foremost investors including Altos Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Ribbit Capital, Aspex Management, GIC, Sequoia China, PayPal Ventures and others.