Velmie vs HES FinTech:
Who’s Leading Digital Banking?
Author: Ekaterina Podgaiskaya
Last updated October, 29
The competition to redefine digital banking and lending is gaining more speed — it's going from a shift into overdrive. Banks big and small, from hungry fintech newcomers to major international giants, all face the challenge of overhauling their tech stacks, introducing new products more quickly, and keeping expenses within bounds while complying with ever-increasing regulatory requirements.
Against the high-stake background, there are two names which tend to come up during boardroom deliberations – Velmie and HES FinTech!
Both firms, on face value, offer speed, flexibility, and innovation. But their go-to-market approaches are diametrically opposite. Velmie offers a modular digital bank stack covering the full spectrum of financial services — payments, wallets, lending, wealth management, even crypto
and digital gold — all based on source-code ownership and quick-deployment capabilities.
Whereas, HES FinTech follows a specialist approach with sole focus on lending software driving loan origination, servicing, scoring, and collections across microfinance lenders, consumer lenders, and P2P platforms.
So, what's best for your institution? That's a matter of whether you require a general-purpose digital banking platform with global scalability or a best-of-breed lending engine built with depth in mind.
In this piece, we'll lay out the abilities, compromises, costs, and best-of-suite use cases of Velmie compared to HES FinTech so that you'll get a better sense of which platform best fits your plan.
Introduction
How Do Velmie and HES FinTech Differ in Approach?
Velmie resents itself as a modular digital banking platform intended to serve across the entire financial services continuum—ranging from wallets and payment all the way to lending, wealth management, crypto, and gold-backed products. Velmie, as a value proposition, is wide: an end-to-end solution encompassing banking fundamentals but also granting full source-code control with rapid-deployment capabilities across neobanks, EMIs, fintech newcomers, and incumbents.
HES Fintech, however, is more specialist in its approach. Lithuania-based, it has built a specialist profile as an expert in lending software, with platforms which narrow their focus to loan origination, servicing, scoring, and collections. Velmie's all-purpose banking core is not like HES, which is not a full-stack solution but has a specialist focus on lenders, microfinance, and P2P lending players who seek a turnkey, dependable, and SaaS-friendly lending platform.
This distinction — depth vs. breadth — is the core of the Velmie vs. HES argument. To find out which platform best fits, we must unwrap what exactly each company has to offer and how their ideologies differ.
What is Velmie?
How does Velmie’s modular platform benefit fintechs and banks?
Velmie is not only a software provider but a full-fledged integrated digital banking platform. It has been developed with the principle of modularity so that institutions either subscribe to the full suite or roll out selective products as per their business model. The modules include core banking, payment, wallet, lending, wealth management, crypto solutions, and even digital gold products.
The modules include core banking, payment, wallet, lending, wealth management, crypto solutions, and even digital gold
products. This breadth is what makes Velmie particularly attractive to fintechs and banks that don’t want to juggle multiple vendors. Rather than piecing together separate providers for payments, lending, or wealth, Velmie allows institutions to manage everything in a unified architecture. The result is not just efficiency but also consistency across the customer experience.
In the case of businesses looking to go global, Velmie's coverage allows them to enter diverse markets with dissimilar mixes of products without the burden of having to adapt their systems. At the strategic level, such flexibility is insurance against the unexpected — whatever happens to the financial sector, Velmie has a module to deal with it.
Why is source-code ownership important?
One of Velmie's unique characteristics is the stance taken with respect to source-code ownership. Similar to most SaaS platforms, wherein customers rent functionality, Velmie offers customers the privilege of owning the codebase underlying it. This has considerable implications with respect to control, regulatory purposes, and eventual enterprise value.
Ownership entails that customers are free to adapt, extend, or customize the system without vendor permission or being subject to a third-party roadmap. For fintechs, that adds velocity to innovation; for banks, it offers independence from vendor lock-in and a degree of compliance flexibility. At an operational level, source-code ownership also makes software a capitalized asset — an item that beefs up balance sheets and improves valuations.
In an era when so many companies fear over-reliance on SaaS providers, Velmie's ownership model is like a breath of clean air. It's software with which you have full autonomy but software that you host.
How fast can Velmie be implemented?
Speed is also an essential core of Velmie's proposition. Most neobanks and fintechs struggle with multi-year IT projects sucking up resources and momentum. Velmie is built to go fast, typically in a matter of weeks, enabling organizations to go to market fast with products and take advantage of opportunities before others do.
The acceleration does not compromise on strength. Velmie's API-first architecture provides seamless integration with third-party systems, payment networks, and compliance providers. This makes Velmie especially suitable for EMIs, startups, and challenger banks who value agility.
Conversely, established banks benefit as well with Velmie's ability to plug into existing ecosystems without needing to execute an entire IT overhaul. This compatibility-and-speed equation puts Velmie in a position of strength in emerging digital banking markets with fading patience with multi-year timelines.
Get the Full Case Study
Discover how Snap Finance accelerated its UK expansion with Velmie’s cutting-edge financial technology
What is HES FinTech?
Why Is HES an expert in lending software?
This is just the opposite of Velmie's approach because it only concentrates on lending products. The Lithuania-based company has become an expert in managing loan life cycles. Loan origination, servicing, scoring, and collections are all managed through the platform, allowing organizations to have a single, efficient way of managing credit products from end-to-end.
Having refined what it does, HES has become incredibly proficient in the lending vertical. Whereas others compartmentalize resources across an assortment of silos, it invests all of its energy in making the workflow and compliance characteristics essential to lenders superior. This makes HES particularly well suited to non-traditional lenders, consumer lenders, and microfinance lenders whose model is all about credit.
Where Velmie is a global platform, HES is a laser-sharp tool, adding depth and experience to organizations where lending is more than a line of products – it's the entire business.
White-label distribution or SaaS?
HES is predominantly a SaaS business but also offers white-label products to those organizations who wish to have more brand flexibility.
The SaaS business has smaller initial costs and faster go-live, better aligned with smaller lenders or fintechs who need to go to market faster with much smaller capital outlay.
The trade-off is straightforward, though: SaaS customers do not retain rights to underlying code. They must look to HES as their source of continuing maintenance, upgrade, and development of new features. For some, the dependence is a fair tradeoff for ease of use and reduced risk. For others — especially institutions who value autonomy — the dependence might seem restrictive compared to Velmie's rights-based approach.
White-label solutions do present an accommodation to an extent here as they allow customers to deploy fully branded lending platforms with their own brand, but technical control stays with HES. This business model makes the most sense with organizations who are more focused on customer-facing differentiation as opposed to back-end flexibility.
Who are the ideal customers for HES FinTech?
HES's customer base is as niche-based as it is. Its platform is viable only for lenders, microfinance institutions, and P2P loan providers who want high-end loan management products but never a full banking product suite. This niche focus insulates HES from directly competing with the full-stack players such as Velmie, and instead, it establishes a strong niche position among firms with a focus on credits.
For emerging-market microfinance lenders, HES provides an option to digitalize business, minimize labor-intensive processing, and enhance scoring with new-age tools. For P2P lenders, it provides effective borrower-lender matching, automated servicing, and workflow-based compliance. The modularity of the platform also guarantees that smaller and big lenders are able to tailor it to their product mix.
In a nutshell, HES services institutional markets where the value proposition is pure lending, and lending and nothing else but lending. This narrow focus of orientation is both the greatest strength and biggest weakness compared to Velmie's big picture vision.
Comparison Table:
How Do Velmie and HES Compare in Features?
What Are the Pricing Models for Velmie and HES FinTech?
How does Velmie’s one-time license and source-code ownership work?
One-time license with long-term value
Velmie's business model is founded on the concept of an investment rather than a subscription. As opposed to tying customers in with recurring SaaS fees, Velmie provides a single licensing agreement paid out all at once.
This business model results in institutions committing more in the beginning but receiving lasting value from their investment. In the long run, what appears as a high front-end expense tends to be cheaper in the long-term compared to making periodic subscription payments. It's particularly pleasing to aspiring growth-oriented fintechs, as the platform never becomes an ever-swelling expense line with increasing transaction volumes.
In practical terms, Velmie's model enables mature and startup banks to achieve predictable long-term economics without being locked into increasing fees. Institutions do not get locked into increasing fees while having complete control over how much they want to put back towards customizations or integration. For new innovative fintechs who plan to grow into full-fledged institutions, having their infrastructure via a license can also prove to be a strategic differentiator that sets them apart in an ever-competitive sector.
Source-code ownership as a strategic asset
Maybe the most compelling aspect of Velmie's business model is the provision of source-code ownership. Rather than renting rights to software, an institution acquires rights to underlying intellectual property. This makes the platform more than just a tool but an integral business asset. Ownership enables firms to customize innovation according to their rhythm, expand the product to suit developing regulatory or customer requirements, and escape vendor timelines dependence.
Strategically, code ownership also boosts enterprise value. For fintechs raising capital or one day selling out, being able to say, "We own our platform" makes the business case more compelling. Intellectual property is a physical property in investors' eyes, as opposed to SaaS licenses, which expire when payments cease. Velmie's approach thus isn't merely about software ownership but about instilling long-term financial and strategic self-sufficiency in a fintech's DNA.
What are HES FinTech’s SaaS pricing and white-label options?
Vendor dependency of SaaS model
The downside to the SaaS approach of HES is the degree of vendor lock-in it creates. As customers are renting their way onto the platform, they are still subject to the vendor's underlying infrastructure plan and development.
Custom work, integration, or extensions have to go through HES, entailing typically more negotiations, costs, and timelines. Lock-in will restrict agility just when a fintech or lender needs to differentiate from others in the marketplace.
From a management perspective, the setup is restrictive to aspiring institutions. While in Velmie, with actual ownership,
extensive changes are possible, HES customers are restricted to the limitations of the SaaS product. For businesses with high-speed markets, it might translate to longer time-to-market with new products or lost potential when changes in regulation require swift responses.
While making it easier and cheaper to enter the lending marketplace through HES, long-term independence and control are traded off in favor of short-term convenience. For some institutions, such a compromise is understandable; others find such constraints colossal.
Which Businesses Benefit Most from Velmie or HES FinTech?
What types of institutions are best suited for Velmie’s full banking stack?
Complete banking stack for neobanks and EMIs
Velmie best fits neobanks and electronic money institutions (EMIs) with an all-in-one business model of modular core banking, payment, wallet, lending, wealth management, and innovative products such as crypto and gold. Velmie is viable for neobanks and EMIs who want to offer an integrated set of services through a single platform. Velmie users do away with having to integrate different solutions and instead have a single system scalable with their future plans.
In a neobank, it means having the capability to start from basic payment and current accounts and then scale more mature products such as loans or investment products slowly over time. Velmie's modularity also ensures each capability gets added as and when required without resorting to a costly rebuild. The flexibility here is critical given an ever-shifting product roadmap in an industry due to customer demands and shifting regulation.
Also critical is the time to deploy. Velmie deploys quickly, frequently enabling an institution to go live in a matter of months compared to more conventional banking cores' implementation timelines of a year or more. For those startups with tiger team-style deadlines set during funding or with competitive threats on the horizon, time differences like these can be the determinant of capturing or losing market share.
Banks globally seeking flexibility and control
Velmie isn't only for new-age startups but also fits existing banks with the desire to upgrade or move into new markets. For international players, adaptability is paramount. Velmie's ownership-based approach allows banks to customize the platform to accommodate unique regulatory regimes, connect with domestic payment networks, or customize features to regional client expectations. This comes especially in handy during cross-border moves when generic solutions tend to disappoint.
In big organizations, having the source code reduces third-party vendor dependency and preserves strategic agility. As the bank enters a new marketplace, it has the flexibility to change the way the mechanisms comply or introduce native functionality without needing to ask the vendor's permission. This independence to act is often critical in navigating the cumbersome global regulatory landscape.
In addition, Velmie enables big banks to try out digital-first spinoffs or niches. They do not have to rethink their legacy cores but instead utilize Velmie as a digital-native layer, experimenting with innovative products alongside established ones. This dual approach enables banks to remain agile while not having to compromise their core legacy infrastructure.
Which lending providers should consider HES FinTech?
FinTech lending platforms for select providers
HES FinTech excels with a sole focus on lending business. Loan origination, servicing, scoring, and collections expertise qualifies it as an ideal partner or co-operator for microfinance institutions, payday lenders, peer-to-peer loaners, or niche players in the lending and issuing of credits business. These institutions do not generally utilize a full core banking implementation but want a strong, stable engine to manage credit workflow processes.
In such institutions, HES provides the benefit of being specifically built for purpose. Features of the platform map closely to the lending life cycle, so onboarding borrowers is efficient, as is evaluating the risk, disbursing amounts, and making repayments. Being narrow-focused, unlike more general platforms spreading their capabilities thin across banking, payment, etc., HES concentrates on making lending as efficient and automated as possible.
This laser focus often translates into shorter deployment timelines and quicker results for institutions that only care about lending. For a small or midsize lender, the ability to launch quickly with minimal overhead is a compelling reason to choose HES over more comprehensive, but complex, alternatives.
Budget-friendly entrance level option for lenders
HES's SaaS business model is especially attractive to lenders who desire to maintain initial outlay minimal. Cost-conscious lenders such as startups testing out new products in lending or smaller players who cater to new markets may find the high licensing fees of products such as Velmie expensive. For lenders such as these, there is an option to get professional-grade lending infrastructure through HES without exceeding budgetary limitations.
This model also decreases operational complexity. Through outsourcing infrastructure management to HES, smaller companies are able to prioritize their limited resources on customer relationships, loan origination, and repayment collections, instead of maintenance of IT infrastructures. This sharing of responsibility tends to expedite business growth during the initial phase.
The negative aspect is that these firms will find themselves having to remain loyal to the vendor when they scale up. This might not be a serious issue with smaller players but may become restrictive with those who become larger players with more diversified requirements. For early-stage or niche players, though, HES remains a viable and inexpensive means of gaining a toe-hold in the business of digital lending.
Final Verdict - Which Platform Should You Choose:
Velmie or HES FinTech?
When Velmie is contrasted with HES FinTech, then the decision becomes scope or specialization. Velmie provides an expansive, innovation-capable platform developed from the ground up to meet the needs of banks, neobanks, EMIs, and fintech companies who seek something more than lending.
HES, on the other hand, excels as a specialist. Its entire design ethos is centered on the lending lifecycle: origination, servicing, scoring, and collections.
The decision is clear – if your business needs a full-stack digital bank with the liberty to build, Velmie is the better choice. If your interest lies in having a streamlined, ready-to-deploy lending engine with all the components of a full banking core but without all the bells and whistles, then HES is the more intelligent decision.
Each platform is superior in its area of expertise — success hinges on matching your business vision with the model best equipped to sustain it!
FAQ
Q1. What is the main difference between Velmie and HES FinTech?
Velmie is a full-stack modular platform offering source-code ownership, ideal for fintechs and banks seeking autonomy, scalability, and long-term strategic value. HES FinTech is a specialist SaaS solution focused solely on lending for microfinance, consumer, and P2P lenders.
Q2. Which platform is suitable for neobanks and EMIs?
Velmie’s modular architecture enables neobanks and EMIs to deploy payments, wallets, lending, and investment products rapidly while maintaining operational consistency. HES FinTech’s lending-focused approach does not provide a full banking stack.
Explore how Velmie fits your institution at velmie.com/white-label-neobank-software
Q3. Can Velmie customers own the software?
Yes. Velmie provides full source-code ownership, allowing customization, compliance flexibility, and operational independence. HES FinTech SaaS customers cannot access the underlying code, limiting back-end adaptability.
Discuss it with experts at velmie.com/contact
Q4. Can HES FinTech clients modify the platform?
Customization is limited. HES SaaS clients depend on vendor updates and integration support. White-label options allow branding, but core functionality remains managed by HES. Velmie allows full customization via source-code access.
Learn more at velmie.com/contact
Q5. How should businesses decide between Velmie and HES FinTech?
Choose Velmie for full-stack flexibility, source-code ownership, and scalable innovation. Select HES FinTech for a ready-to-deploy, specialized lending solution. The best choice aligns platform strengths with your business vision.
Talk to an expert at velmie.com/contact