If you’re engaged in banking business, say – that is, you take in deposits and grant loans – you’re going to be treated as a bank by supervisors. You’ll need a licence and be expected to satisfy supervisory standards. Whether a bank only appears on a smartphone screen or it is a well-established institution with a number of branches is neither here nor there.
The same reasoning applies to the business activity of financial services institutions and payment institutions. So if a fintech in Germany remains exempt from supervision, that is simply because its business model contains nothing which, from today’s perspective, presents a risk that needs to be supervised by us. The notion of “same business, same risk, same rules” therefore remains the guiding principle for supervisors.