In an exclusive interview in Paris on May 21, 2026 with Paiement.fr, Antoine Orsini, co-founder and CEO of Lemonway, outlines the company's strategic roadmap after a pivotal transition period. The French fintech, which serves over 1,200 marketplace and platform clients across 15+ countries, is now entering a new, product-focused phase after a year and a half of foundational work.
- After eighteen months of deep compliance work and the integration of PayGreen, Lemonway is putting product innovation back at the center of its strategy.
- From card issuance in partnership with Visa and Mastercard, to a fully overhauled KYC infrastructure and dedicated IBANs per payment account, the French fintech is expanding what a payment account can do.
- With over 150 internal AI agents already deployed and advanced discussions underway with the major card networks, Lemonway is positioning itself as a full-service payment infrastructure player across Europe.
PayGreen: Broadening the Lemonway Model
The acquisition of PayGreen in June 2025 marked a strategic inflection point. While Lemonway had historically focused on complex marketplace payment flows, PayGreen brought something complementary: the ability to onboard e-commerce merchants quickly, through streamlined and standardized integrations.
"At Lemonway, we have 1,200 e-commerce businesses and platform clients, but each onboarding takes time. Because in a marketplace, payments are at the core of the business model. What we were missing was the ability to plug in a payment provider very quickly."
Antoine Orsini
Co-founder and CEO
Beyond the product layer, the acquisition also allows Lemonway to engage businesses earlier in their lifecycle, before they evolve into platforms or marketplaces. Since the beginning of 2026, several dozen new clients have been signed. A standout finding from the integration: PayGreen's deep specialization in the food and restaurant vertical, including meal voucher acceptance and sector-specific integrations, opening the door to new strategic partnerships in segments where Lemonway had historically had limited presence.
KYC: From Compliance Burden to Strategic Infrastructure
A significant share of the past eighteen months was dedicated to a complete overhaul of Lemonway's KYC infrastructure. The company built an orchestration platform capable of managing multiple identity verification providers, adapting to local regulatory requirements across more than fifteen countries.
Among the major changes: the widespread adoption of a second identity verification step, including liveness detection, which required a full redesign of user journeys.
"We completely redesigned the experience. And inevitably, the transition had us sweating for a few weeks, both us and our clients."
Antoine Orsini
Co-founder and CEO
Lemonway is already preparing for the European digital identity framework expected in 2027, having designed its KYC architecture as an open platform that can connect to national identity hubs as they come online.
Cards, IBANs, and AI: The Product Offensive
After stabilizing its foundations, Lemonway is now focused squarely on product innovation.
Dedicated IBANs: Lemonway is pursuing banking sub-participation to obtain a proprietary BIC and assign a dedicated IBAN to each payment account — gradually bringing the experience closer to that of a traditional bank account, particularly for crowdfunding and transactional platforms.
Card issuance: Lemonway is in advanced discussions with Visa and Mastercard to launch its own card product by 2027, targeting use cases such as blocked accounts for international students, peer-to-peer resale platforms, group pots, and loyalty programs.
"Visa and Mastercard moved very quickly with us. They are incredibly efficient machines."
Antoine Orsini
Co-founder and CEO
Artificial intelligence: Lemonway has deployed Dust's toolset to build AI literacy across all its teams, with over 150 internal agents already created. The ambition is not headcount reduction, but a fundamental transformation of how teams work and execute.
"Payments is a word that encompasses an entire galaxy of services."
Antoine Orsini
Co-founder and CEO
About Lemonway
Lemonway is a pan-European Payment Institution offering a dedicated solution for B2B, B2C, and C2C marketplaces, as well as alternative finance platforms, seeking payment processing, wallet management, and third-party payment services with appropriate AML and KYC compliance. Lemonway is licensed and regulated by the ACPR (Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution) and holds a European financial passport in 28 countries. The company is headquartered in Paris and has offices in Hamburg.
1200 eMerchants and platforms trust Lemonway, including 200 alternative finance platforms. To date, Lemonway manages 1.5 million payment accounts for platform operators and has raised €50M from Breega, SpeedInvest, and Toscafund.
Contact
Claire Castier
VP Marketing and Communications chez Lemonway
[email protected]