The French company Toro Development moves its head office from Taiwan to Catalonia

The french funded company toro development has moved its head office from taiwan to barcelona in order to be closer to europe, its target market. at present, toro development is launching an independent european mobile wallet platform that includes payments, loyalty plans and transport public use. this system, using smartphones and a high level of security, facilitates payments of all amounts in shops or on public transport. the mobile wallet can also be used as id in accessing areas where personal identification is needed. 

for its barcelona offices toro has a staff of 30, covering 7 different nationalities, and with 5 professionals coming from this asian country. the company expects to reach some 40 employees over 2016. to set up its head office in barcelona toro had the support of the catalan government via catalonia trade & investment, the public agency in charge of foreign investment attraction. 

furthermore, the company has obtained 1.9 million euros of funding from the sme instrument as part of the horizon 2020 eu research and innovation programme. the catalan government assesses catalan firms throughout all the steps required to access this funding. 

toro development’s ceo, laurent renard, explains that the company chose to set up in catalonia and to roll out its mobile wallet platform there because “it is one of the places where mobile payment is strongly taking off as banks in spain have been investing in contactless payment for many years”. 

moreover, renard feels that “barcelona is the most dynamic city in spain in terms of ict, as the both the catalan government and the barcelona city council are committed to the mobile phone sector, and this is a reflected in the fact that the mobile world congress is being celebrated in barcelona until 2023”. 

in 2015, toro development showed a turnover of almost 1.3 million euros, an increase of over 60% compared with two years previously. recently the company has also opened offices in paris.