London-based open banking and regtech platform Railsbank has topped up its Series A funding round with investments from Visa and Japanese VC Global Brain.
Railsbank picked up $10 million in September 2019 for its Series A. The size of the new investments has not been disclosed but is in the millions of dollars, according to TechCrunch.
In addition to the money, Visa has agreed a five-year partnership with Railsbank to help push its Banking as a Service offering in Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. Railsbank has also become a Visa principal issuing member.
The startup, led by Currencycloud founder Nigel Verdon, recently opened a Singapore office to lead the effort to bring its platform of APIs for banking, payments and compliance services to Asia.
Says Verdon: “I personally moved to live in Singapore to open our regional head office here so we can offer our unique platform to a far wider audience and be an enabler of financial inclusion, which is one of the core principles my co-founder Clive Mitchell and I setup Railsbank to achieve.
"Our partnership with Visa signals our intent to be the most innovative banking platform business in Asia-Pacific. Our API focussed platform is the simplest way for any business or brand to quickly conceptualise, build and launch digital finance products that easily incorporate Visa’s product suite and capabilities."
Global Brain says it sees "huge potential" in the open banking technology: "Corporates, especially in Asia, are more willing to have banking services and Railsbank can provide them with a turnkey solution for this."
Visa's interest in Railsbank comes sharply on the heels of a commercial agreement and investment in Hong Kong-based business account startup Neat.