Lightyear
“Can a dual-jurisdiction retail investment platform become the default financial operating layer for European individual and business cash management by combining brokerage, multi-currency accounts, and treasury yield products?”
Founded circa 2020, Lightyear launched as a retail investment platform targeting European investors with low-cost access to global stocks, ETFs, and funds. It expanded to the UK in 2022, creating a dual-entity regulated structure. The company has progressively embedded financial infrastructure — partnering with TrueLayer for open banking payments and Currencycloud for multi-currency FX — to remove friction from account funding and currency conversion. More recently, Lightyear has moved upmarket with a Business Account product offering treasury yield via BlackRock Money Market Funds, positioning itself as a cash management tool for SMEs, and has secured EFSA authorisation for crypto-asset services.