Sola

What is Sola and what do they do?

Sola is a European payment gateway and fintech infrastructure company specialising in high-risk and regulated industries. Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus, the company combines card acquiring and open banking under a single platform it calls the Sola Core Engine.

The product covers four payment types — card processing, pay-by-bank (open banking), local European payment methods, and digital wallets — all accessible through a unified dashboard or via a RESTful API. For open banking connectivity, Sola partners with Salt Edge, giving merchants access to bank-to-bank payment rails across Europe, including familiar methods like Sofort and iDEAL.

Who is it for?

Sola targets merchants in verticals where mainstream acquirers and PSPs typically decline or underserve: iGaming and online gambling, Forex and trading platforms, subscription and SaaS businesses, and high-risk e-commerce.

The offer is explicitly positioned for operators who need specialised high-risk merchant accounts, compliant fraud management, and stable acquiring — not the generic acquiring setup that works for low-risk retail. Its current geographic focus is Germany, Spain, Cyprus, and Latvia, with broader European expansion in progress.

Why do businesses choose Sola?

The core value proposition is specialist infrastructure for high-risk verticals that mainstream providers won't support or can't handle reliably. Key reasons merchants consider Sola:

• Integrated card and open banking. A single gateway covering both card processing and pay-by-bank reduces integration overhead and lets merchants offer a broader checkout without managing separate providers.
• AI-based fraud prevention. Sola advertises an AI fraud engine trained on fraud patterns specific to iGaming and Forex — verticals with distinct chargeback and fraud dynamics that generic solutions aren't calibrated for.
• Flexible integration paths. Merchants can go live quickly using a hosted payment page (low dev effort, simplified PCI DSS scope) or take full UI/UX control via the Gate API. The trade-off between compliance burden and customisation is documented and explicit.
• 24/7 specialist support. The company markets round-the-clock support from people with high-risk industry backgrounds — relevant for operators where payment downtime has direct revenue impact.

Is Sola trustworthy?

For open banking payments, Sola operates on top of Salt Edge's regulated infrastructure. Salt Edge is a licensed open banking provider under PSD2, which provides a regulated layer for the bank payment flows. For card acquiring, Sola references direct acquiring connections.

For any serious vendor evaluation, the key items to verify directly are: regulated entity details and licensing status, acquiring bank and card scheme relationships, full supported payment method list, and technical SLA documentation. Sola is a specialist option worth evaluating for high-risk European use cases.