5 Open Banking companies revolutionizing the European banking industry

By Joy Dumasia

Open banking is becoming a significant source of innovation that is poised to reshape the banking industry. Open banking is a banking practice that provides third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking, transaction, and other financial data from banks and non-bank financial institutions through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

The concept of open banking makes significant, established banks to be more competitive with small and new banks. Large banks will have to adopt new technologies to provide better customer service at lower costs. Open banking allows consumers, financial institutions, and third-party service providers to use the network of accounts and data across institutions.

The following are the 5 Open Banking companies revolutionizing the European banking industry:

• Minna Technologies

Minna Technologies, founded in Sweden, enables customers to manage subscription services via their bank’s app. The platform also notifies customers when a free trial is about to prevent them from charging and facilitates utilities switching to help customers find better deals. 

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that FinTech Bud had selected Minna Technologies, a Swedish tech company, to provide banks with access to Minna’s subscription management tools through Bud’s Open Banking platform. The combined service will use Bud’s data intelligence capabilities to identify spending on subscription products like Netflix and Spotify and allow users to manage (and cancel should they wish to) those subscriptions from inside their primary bank apps.

• Tink

Tink provide banks, financial service providers and developers across Europe with a platform that opens up new possibilities for a better customer experience – combining aggregation (AIS) and payment initiation (PIS) with data enrichment and personal finance management (PFM) products.

IBS Intelligence recently reported that Tink the Open Banking platform has appointed Rowan Taylor as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). London-based Rowan joins Tink from AWS, where he spent more than five years leading global financial services sales teams. His 26 years of experience in banking technology also includes roles at Gartner, KPMG and Accenture. 

• Yapily 

Established in 2017 in the UK, Yapily offers a proprietary open API that enables companies to access the financial information needed to meet rising customer expectations in banking, lending, payments, accounting, and money management. Its clients include Intuit QuickBooks, IBM, and GoCardless. It also collaborates with technical design authorities and regulators, such as Open Banking Implementation Entity in the UK and Berlin Group.

IBS Intelligence reported that Yapily, the open banking infrastructure provider, announced the first closing of its $51m Series B funding round (second closing subject to regulatory approvals), taking its total investment to date to $69m. The acquisition was led by Sapphire Ventures, a venture capital firm and existing investors like Lakestar, HV Capital, and Latitude.

• TrueLayer

TrueLayer is an open banking API provider that offers two products for businesses – Payments API and Data API. It lets applications connect securely with the bank of the end-users to read their financial data, verify their identity and initiate payments.

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that TrueLayer, has announced it has been authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) as a Payments Institution and established its new European headquarters in Dublin to support its rapidly growing client base across the continent.

• Railsbank

London-based open banking and compliance platform Railsbank aims to revolutionize access to international banking by providing digitally native companies including a single global API, connection to payment schemes and the ability to create bank accounts instantly. All the transactions are in line with the compliance policy enforced by the company’s unique Compliance Firewall. 

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that Railsbank had raised $70 million as it continues to expand its critical products globally, strengthening its position as a global Embedded Finance platform. The latest fundraiser was led by Anthos Capital and attracted a range of investors, including Central Capital (VC arm of the Indonesian privately held bank), Cohen and Company (the founder of Bancorp), and Chris Adelsbach’s new fund Outrun Ventures. Existing investors also participated.

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