Finseta has steered away from the traditional route of expanding its direct salesforce, instead weaving its foreign exchange and payment solutions into a broader aggregator network designed specifically for smaller enterprises. By aligning with this emerging channel, the company has positioned itself not merely as a service provider but as an integral building block in a streamlined digital infrastructure tailored to the often-neglected needs of UK SMEs.
Since its rebranding from Cornerstone FS, Finseta has harnessed a surge in customer engagement, translating into revenue of £11.4 million in 2024, up almost 19 per cent on the prior year, while pretax profit edged ahead by 7.7 per cent to £1.4 million. Shareholders responded positively when the group confirmed a robust start to 2025 trading, triggering a share price uptick of around 10 per cent in April. This financial momentum has underpinned a clear strategic pivot towards embedding Finseta’s multicurrency account and payment capabilities within a curated ecosystem, rather than relying solely on expanding its internal distribution reach.
At the heart of this shift lies a partnership with a nascent broker-aggregator dubbed Stable, conceived by seasoned fintech operators keen to eliminate the friction SMEs face when cobbling together finance, FX, payments and invoicing solutions from disparate providers. By integrating Finseta’s platform into Stable’s AI-driven interface, small businesses can access locked-rate currency exchanges, mass-pay functionality and corporate card schemes under one digital roof. This consolidation resolves a longstanding pain point: the patchwork of platforms that many smaller firms endure, sacrificing speed and raising costs each time they switch between lending, payments or foreign exchange tools.
Finseta’s chief executive, James Hickman, emphasises that conventional bank offerings have long presented SMEs with “high choice but low value and high fees”. Embedding Finseta directly within Stable’s network layer ensures that the currency specialist’s services arrive precisely when an SME needs them, whether that’s to pay overseas suppliers or manage multiple currencies in real time. This channel-led distribution not only reduces customer acquisition costs but also preserves margin by sidestepping extended sales cycles and manual onboarding processes.
For long-term investors, the implications extend beyond incremental revenue gains. Access to Stable’s SME-centric pipeline offers Finseta the possibility of materially higher transaction volumes and deeper wallet penetration, as its solutions become the default foreign-exchange and payments hub within a broader operational platform. In return, Stable boosts its proposition by showcasing established fintech names alongside newer entrants such as Spark Finance and Navro, thereby mitigating execution risk and reinforcing its credibility among small business clients.
Competition in the UK’s open-banking arena remains fierce, with digital banks and specialist lenders vying for attention. Yet, the curated-aggregator model, underpinned by AI for intelligent risk-assessment and user-experience design, could carve out a defensible niche. The pedigree of Stable’s founders, drawn from Equals Group and Railsr, lends further weight to the venture, combining fintech partnerships expertise with advanced payment rails. As Finseta rolls out corporate card schemes and prepares to extend its mass-payment infrastructure into the UAE and Canada later in 2025, the network effect from Stable’s SME user base may prove pivotal in accelerating cross-border FX demand.
Viewed through an investor lens, Finseta’s alliance with Stable reframes the company from a promising FX and payment specialist into a channel-powered growth business tackling a foundational SME challenge. By embedding its services within a unified digital experience, Finseta can deepen client relationships, extend service density and enhance visibility over future earnings streams. The ongoing expansion into new territories and product verticals dovetails with this channel-first approach, offering structural support to margin sustainability and reducing reliance on direct sales investment.
Finseta Plc (LON:FIN), formerly Cornerstone FS PLC, is a United Kingdom-based foreignexchange and payments company offering multi-currency accounts and payment solutions to businesses and individuals through its global payments network.
