EU Sovereignty Score
EU-hosted, non-EU parentFintech & NeobanksHeadquarters: DE

Solaris: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Solaris is a German technology company with a full banking licence that provides banking-as-a-service and embedded finance. Other businesses use it to build banking functions into their own products, such as accounts and sub-accounts under their own brand, KYC/KYB identification, debit, prepaid and credit cards, payments (including SEPA transfers and direct debits) and lending products such as consumer loans and buy-now-pay-later. The company describes its infrastructure as entirely cloud-based and delivers the services as a platform for partners.

Solaris SE is based in Berlin and uses its German banking licence to operate in all EU countries. Since early 2025 Japan's SBI Group has been the majority shareholder; the German supervisor BaFin completed the ownership review in March 2025. The Japanese parent is a signal of foreign control, even though the headquarters is in the EU. The sources consulted do not state where data is hosted, and there is no open-source or self-hosted option.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Solaris pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-655
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 5, 2026
Headquarters
DE (EU)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company
JPVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Fintech & Neobanks
Type
Product
Website
solarisgroup.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Solaris

The European alternatives to Solaris come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

116 European Fintech & Neobanks vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Solaris one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Solaris

Solaris is headquartered in DE and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data. The ultimate owner is based in JP. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so Solaris scores best on data residency.

Solaris is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Solaris together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Solaris?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Solaris include 1822direkt, ActivoBank and Air Bank. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Solaris?

Our list of EU alternatives to Solaris is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Solaris GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Solaris is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes Solaris an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 5, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Fintech & Neobanks

Fintech & Neobanks: Digital banks, neobanks, money transfers and fintech services. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Fintech & Neobanks page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Solaris — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score