Zopa is planning to open a development centre in Barcelona, its first major base outside of the UK, to support the launch of its next generation bank.
While Zopa will remain focused on UK based consumers, the new hub will initially focus on building the technology to support the launch of Zopa’s next generation bank and developers will work on developing payment gateways, credit card processing, and deposit systems.
The P2P lender, the first in the world, chose Barcelona it as home to some of the world’s best tech talent, according to Zopa’s Chief Technology Officer, Ronen Benchetrit.
“Barcelona has an exciting and fast growing tech scene and is already home to some of the world’s best tech talent. It also draws the best talent from all over the world, attracted by its vibrant culture.”
Didier Baclin, Head of Bank Build at Zopa, said, “Our Barcelona development centre will give us access to some of the best software engineers in the world, allowing us to accelerate the development of the infrastructure we need to support the launch of our next generation bank.”
The new hub will sit alongside Zopa’s growing London Bridge based development teams. Developers working on the bank technology infrastructure will be split between London and Barcelona.
