Account-to-account payments startup Banked has moved out of public beta after securing £2.35 million in seed funding.
Set up to challenge the dominace of card schemes Visa and MasterCard, the London-based firm says it payments software lets consumers, businesses and banks process payments in real-time, more securely, and for one-tenth of the traditional cost.
It has now raised a total of £5.35million and the latest investment was led by Force Over Mass, with participation from Backed, Acrew Capital (San Francisco based) and high net worth partners including the family office of serial investor and co-founder of indeed.com, Paul Forster.
The software suite includes a checkout API for businesses to embed on their Websites and a P2P banking app for consumers.
The company charges a flat fee of 0.1% to process payments. Its software also transfers money without sharing customer bank details, with a claimed 96% reduction in fraud.
Banked CEO Bard Goodall says the latest funding round will be used to build more commercial relationships and support its rollout across Europe.
“The current payments systems used by credit card companies and most traditional banks were designed 40 years ago and have become archaic, not to mention costly and inefficient for businesses to use," he says. "It’s time we welcomed the future of payments and given the current state of the economy, businesses need this now more than ever.