Fintech companies involved in esports & streaming 2024
Fintech companies are constantly utilising new technologies, embracing the internet, and challenging the traditional financial methods of the sector. The widespread usage of smartphones and the internet has allowed these financial technology companies to rapidly expand and grow into a hundreds of billions dollar industry.
The fact that these companies are so deeply entrenched in the internet makes esports and live streaming ideal brand exposure opportunities for them. The esports, gaming, and live streaming sectors offer a wide range of diverse and young fans, who are oftentimes looking to make their first steps into the financial industry. These fans are looking for their new bank, for example, and fintech companies can capture the attention of these young customers through gaming.
Some fintech companies have been involved with the esports industry for years, and in this piece, Esports Charts has collated a list of the largest fintech companies currently involved with gaming and esports in 2024, as well as some of the industry titans that have previously engaged with the esports and streaming industries.
Fintech companies in esports and streaming, 2024
Mastercard’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Raja Rajamannar, was quoted at the time: “Esports is a phenomenon that continues to grow in popularity, with fans that can rival those at any major sporting event in their enthusiasm and energy. […] We are excited about the experiences and benefits we can bring to the world’s largest esport.” Mastercard has clearly enjoyed the partnership with Riot Games, as in 2023, they expanded their partnership to include Valorant esports as well. Raja Rajamannar expanded on their partnership choice: “[Esports’] revenues are now bigger than the movie and music industries combined and competitive gaming has morphed into a full-fledged global spectacle that rivals, and even dwarfs, many traditional sports”.
Around the same time Mastercard expanded into Valorant, Ally Financial Inc. joined forces with Rocket League Esports to sponsor the Rocket League Championship Series. The partnership was announced in February 2023, and the company is still involved with the esports title: specifically also focusing on empowering women in esports. The company has headlined events such as the Ally Women’s Open, an all-female Rocket League tournament held in early 2023.
In 2024, Ally continued to support women in Rocket League Esports by announcing three all-female tournaments and one co-ed event throughout the year. While hosting their own events in the esports space, the company continued to have their brand featured throughout the RLCS 2024 season. While Rocket League has been Ally’s biggest esports investment, the fintech company has also collaborated with games such as Fortnite, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft.
Moving back to Riot Games, Santander Bank has been heavily involved with League of Legends esports since mid-2022. The banking company has been collaborating and expanding into the fintech industry for years now, and their partnerships with regional League of Legends circuits have helped to expose the Santander brand to a whole new generation of young customers.
The company originally signed a multi-year partnership deal with the League of Legends European Championship (now known as League of Legends EMEA Championship), and the Liga Latinoamérica. The banking company is the official main sponsor of both leagues, and also sponsors the Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends (CBLOL), the Brazilian League of Legends circuit. The company has covered its bases across the entirety of South America and Europe, which has now expanded to include the Middle East and Africa as the LEC expanded its borders. The Santander banking brand is a worldwide operation, and their partnership with esports has brought the brand to millions of young esports fans.
Moving away from esports disciplines, many fintech companies have involved themselves with the teams and organizations that make up the esports industry, as well as the event organizers themselves. In April 2022, the French banking group Crédit Agricole announced a partnership with compatriot esports organization
Team Vitality. The firm has been named an official partner of the team, and Michel Ganzin, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the French fintech firm explained:
“This partnership is part of our desire to strengthen cohesion and social inclusion, particularly among young people. By reaching them as closely as possible thanks to this growing center of interest that is esports, Crédit Agricole firstly wants to be a vector of links: between all the generations who find themselves on this field, but also between players of all ages”. – Michael Ganzin
Crédit Agricole remains to this day one of Team Vitality’s official partners, and supports the organization’s efforts in Rocket League, League of Legends, and EA Sports FC. The firm also supports the Vitality Rising Bees team, which is the female sister team of Team Vitality for League of Legends. When presented the opportunity, many of these fintech companies are particularly progressive in terms of promoting quality within the esports sector.
N26, a German neobank, has entered the esports industry by sponsoring two esports organizations: GamerLegion and Rebels Gaming. The company has no physical banking branches and offers online banking exclusively to their many customers. N26 has utilised these sponsorship partnerships to expose their brand to esports fans, their logo features prominently on both GamerLegion and Rebels Gaming’s official jerseys, and they offer exclusive deals for esports fans.
As one of Europe’s fastest-growing digital banks, N26 is appealing to a whole new wave of esports fans, many of whom are young and looking to open their first account. In a constantly evolving and rapidly digitalising world, a totally online bank may seem more and more appealing to the younger generation.
Another neobank, Revolut, entered the esports industry not through sponsoring specific esports organizations, but rather by partnering with an event organizer. Only earlier this month, Revolut announced a partnership with tournament organizer
BLAST, specifically for the upcoming BLAST Premier Spring Final Counter-Strike tournament.
Revolut has not only been named the presenting sponsor of the event, but also the Official Finance and Payments Partner of the tournament. The partnership marks Revolut’s first entrance into the esports industry, and the company will be aiming to utilise both online and in-person brand activations throughout the tournament. Revolut’s Head of Growth, Strategic partnerships, and Sponsorships, Deborah Wajsbrot, explained that “Just like Revolut, the gaming industry is at the forefront of innovation worldwide. This partnership is the beginning of our efforts to bring unique and unforgettable experiences to Revolut customers and gaming fans – not just at Wembley, but worldwide”.
Past fintech companies in esports and gaming
Although 2024 has seen some of the world’s leading fintech companies both enter and maintain their status within the esports and gaming industries, the past of these sectors is also cluttered with many household names and forerunners of fintech. For example, North America’s favourite mobile payment service Cash App was one of 100 Thieves’ leading sponsors from 2019 up until 2022.
Catherine Ferdon, the Head of Marketing and Brand at Cash App, explained that “[100 Thieves’] creativity and willingness to invent with us is what continues to make this such a groundbreaking partnership”. Throughout their years of partnership, the two companies collaborated on some sizable projects. The payment service company was a title sponsor of 100 Thieves’ first compound for their esports teams, apparel teams, production, and business headquarters. The ‘100 Thieves Cash App Compound’ was the largest esports team facility in the US, and a testament to the companies’ trust in one another. Cash App also presented some of 100 Thieves’ content shows, and produced a ‘100 Thieves Cash Card’.
On the other side of the Americas, digital bank Nubank took a more direct approach to their entrance into the esports scene; they partnered with Ambev, a beverage company, to launch their own gaming and esports circuit in Brazil. The circuit was named Good Game WP, and featured games such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant, and Free Fire, the last of which is particularly popular in Brazil. Although the companies had high hopes for the new Good Game WP circuit, things quickly fizzled out as the circuit dissolved after only a few events.
Paysafecard, a subsidiary of Paysafe Limited, partnered with esports’ forefront company ESL Gaming in 2018. Over the years paysafecard continued to expand their partnership with ESL, until in 2021 they announced a multi-year partnership with the gaming company. The company’s brand was activated through on-stream special activities, as well as many integrations to various ESL events. In 2022, it was announced that ESL and FACEIT were both acquired and merged by Savvy Games Group, leading to the ESL FACEIT Group. It is unclear if ESL’s partnership with paysafecard survived this partnership.
They also joined with NEO to enter the FIFA esports scene. The company became the organization’s main part,er and was particularly interested in former eFIFA world champion Gorilla, who was playing underneath NEO at the time. Paysafecard was advertised through in-game integration, and brand activations on both the Twitch and YouTube channels of the companies. The prepaid online payment method enjoyed a successful partnership with NEO all the way through until 2023, when the esports organization dissolved due to the changing esports scene.
— NEO (@FOLLOWNEOGG) September 14, 2023
One of the globe’s most recognisable Fintech companies, Paypal, was previously a key partner for the
Rainbow Six: Siege
esports scene. As the official payment platform partner of the esports’ Pro League and Majors, the company extended its partnership with Ubisoft the game’s esports scene multiple times. In 2021, the company extended their partnership again, and Paypal’s Vice President Consumer Marketing, Jill Cress, commented that “Esports already accounts for an audience of more than 92 million enthusiasts in Europe and is expanding at a fantastic pace with unprecedented community engagement. We are happy to collaborate with Ubisoft once again to offer to their community new and exclusive experiences”. The company last sponsored the Six Invitational 2023, which was broadcast to over 232.3K Peak Viewers.
Moving across to Europe, German esports organization Berlin International Gaming, or BIG, featured coinbase as a partner between 2021 and 2023. Coinbase initially partnered with BIG as a partner, but expanded this deal to become their main partner in 2022. The cryptocurrency platform was connected with BIG through SPORTFIVE, a sports marketing agency. Although the exact details of this deal are not publicly available, BIG themselves claimed the agreement was a multi-million dollar deal. Coinbase also expanded their horizons to other esports, such as NBA 2K. In 2021, the company announced an exclusive partnership with the NBA, and expanded this deal to include the esports side of the sports company.
The League of Legends European Championship enjoyed some serious sponsors from the fintech sector throughout its history. In recent years, Erste Group joined the league as its main partner in 2020, initially for the Playoffs stage of the year. The deal was Erste Group’s first entrance to the esports industry, and in their press release they noted that esports is a mega trend which is only growing stronger.
SAP SE, a German software and fintech company, clearly felt the same about esports. They signed a partnership with the LEC in 2021 to integrate statistics into the live stream broadcasts of the LEC Summer 2021, which was viewed by 843K concurrent viewers at its peak. Although the partnership was short-lived, and not extended past 2021, SAP SE enjoyed exposure to hundreds of thousands of European fans.
Finally, Stripe, Inc. is an Irish-American financial services and software company which was previously one of the most important companies involved with the esports industry. The company was used as a payment processor for many esports tournaments and events around the globe, and many of the industry’s largest organizers were affected by stripe’s decision to make a policy change to prohibit “games of skill including video game and mobile game tournaments”. The company was used by companies such as the ESL FACEIT Group, VeraEsports, Twitch, Kick, and others. The decision in late 2023 to change their policy came as a surprise to many in the industry, and they have since moved on to other payment processors for their needs.
Both the present and past of esports and gaming feature some of the world’s leading fintech companies. Although some of these companies have exited the industries, this came after many years of success in partnerships and sponsorships. The current state of these industries in 2024 looks promising, as household names like Mastercard continue to support esports and profit from their place in the scene. The young audience of esports events are often thinking about which financial institution to place their trust and business in, and esports and gaming presents an optimal opportunity to connect with these youngsters.
