With an integrated, cloud-native "end-to-end mortgage experience offering" that integrates Vijla's deposit and mortgage servicing platform with Mast's mortgage origination solution, the two companies are aiming to take on the UK's building societies market.

Melton Building Society and Cumberland Building Society are only two of the building societies that Mast now serves as clients.

The two fintechs "share the same mindset," according to Vilja CEO Fredrik Ulvenholm, and their products "complement each other perfectly."

"We think this is the right time to enter the UK market, and we are here to stay," he continues.

UK construction companies

In the UK, there are 42 building societies at the moment.

With approximately £272 billion in total assets, 16 million members, 17,700 employees, and a network of more than 600 locations nationwide, Nationwide is by far the largest. By contrast, the overall value of the building societies industry is £483 billion, meaning that Nationwide is greater than all of its competitors put together.

Penrith is the smallest building society, with assets of £138 million, one branch, and twenty-six staff members.

Vilja's voyage

Stockholm-based Vilja was established in 2007. On its website, it states that "five seasoned experts in banking and IT thought there was a better and more cost-effective loan and deposit system waiting to happen."

"We finally created a brand-new financial system from the ground up, unencumbered by historical issues. And that's when we realized we had created something special for the market.

The firm is expanding throughout Europe and already has facilities in the Nordic region.

SevenDay Bank, a consumer digital bank based in Sweden, was its first customer. In 2007, the vendor completed the development of the bank's primary savings account system.

Despite being purchased by BNP Paribas Personal Finance in 2017, SevenDay Bank has continued to be Vilja's customer. In addition, BNP Paribas Personal Finance is now working on the One Nordic Platform effort, which will standardize its software across all of its Nordic operations. This will involve moving the bank's deposit accounts from its proprietary old solution to Vilja's system. Sweden was the destination of the first country to receive migrants in the summer of 2023.

Additional clients in the area are:

• Hoist Finance, a company that specializes in managing receivables and buying debt;

• Lantmännen Finans, the agricultural cooperative Lantmännen Group's financial services division;

• Fedelta Finance, a company that offers SMEs banking services;

• financial firm Nstart;

• mortgage firm Borgo

• OPR-Finance is a consumer and commercial loan company;

• Serfim Finans, a provider of savings and loan solutions;

• fintech Froda;

• Moank is a sustainable personal financing service.

• mobile banking solution Rocker; furthermore

• Bosam, a company that specializes in loans for cooperative housing.

Mast on a quest

In 2020, Mast, a start-up located in London, was established with the goal of "making lending better and faster for everyone."

It secured £1.2 million in mid-2022 in a round headed by Antler VC, with additional involvement from angel investors, including top executives from Pivotal, VMWare, Jones Lang Lasalle, Airwallex, and the creators of Booking.com, Monzo, and ThirdFort.