“Can Germany's dominant consumer loan comparison portal defend margin as banks push more origination direct-to-consumer and as embedded lenders (auxmoney, BNPLs) reshape distribution?”
Smava started in 2007 as Germany's first peer-to-peer credit marketplace and pivoted over the following years into a broad multi-bank loan comparison portal, adding a scoring engine (2013) and Germany's first fully digital instant loan Kredit2Go (2016). Today it is a broker/aggregator connecting consumers to 20+ partner banks (Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DKB, ING, Norisbank, Postbank, Santander, Targobank, auxmoney, ABK Bank, Vereinigte Volksbank Raiffeisenbank etc.) plus adjacent verticals — credit cards, current accounts, insurance, and mortgages — all offered as a comparison/brokerage, not as a balance-sheet lender.
Smava's cards are issued through imprint.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Smava's stack: Card issuing (imprint); Lending (Ratenkredit / Privatkredit comparison, Autokredit comparison, Baufinanzierung comparison, Umschuldung (debt consolidation) and 2 others).
Smava was founded by Alexander Artopé and Eckart Vierkant and is founded in 2007, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Smava and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.