Swedish account-to-account payments platform Trustly has acquired UK open banking vendor Ecospend.
The acquisition gives Trustly a foothold in the UK market and a marquee client in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, for whom Ecospend has enabled open banking payments. FCA-regulated Ecospend also counts several blue chip private sector clients such as ITV, Toolstation, Anglian Water and London Mutual Credit Union.
In the past year, Ecospend has processed over £5bn in A2A payments to over two million consumers.
Trustly - which shelved plans for a €785 million IPO last year over regulatory due diligence concerns - serve 8,100 merchants, connecting them with 525 million consumers and 6,300 banks in over 30 countries. Nordic Capital bought a 70% stake in the company in 2018 at a valuation of roughly €700 million and merged it with US-based PayWithMyBank in 2019.
In 2021 Trustly processed over $28 billion in transaction volume.
Johan Tjärnberg, group CEO of Trustly says Ecospend’s strong UK Payment Initiation and Account Information Services (PIS & AIS), as well as connectivity with 80+ UK banks makes it a strong fit with Trustly’s collection capabilities and wider European footprint.
"This is a perfect strategic fit," he says. "I am convinced that it will enable us to deliver a market-leading product in the UK, allowing us to capture opportunities and accelerate our current UK expansion.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.