Visa buys Swedish open bank Tink for 1.8 billion euros

The Visa giant will acquire Tink, the Swedish open banking platform, valued at 1.8 billion euros (around 2.15 billion US dollars).

The news comes less than six months after Visa ended Visa’s $ 5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid, the San Francisco-based fintech company – a deal that has met significant opposition since the US Department of Justice .

Like Plaid, Tink’s platform enables customers to connect with more than 3,400 banks and financial institutions to access aggregated financial data and help them develop innovative personal finance tools. Mr. Al Kelly, CEO and President of Visa said

“Visa is committed to doing everything in its power to promote innovation and empower consumers to support Europe’s open banking goals. By combining the Visa network and Tink’s open banking capabilities, we will add value to European consumers and businesses with tools that make their financial lives easier, more reliable and safer. “

Under the agreement with Visa, Tink will retain its current brand and management team and its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

The last time Tink raised money was in December 2020 when it raised € 85 million (about $ 101.5 million) in a round led by Dawn Capital and Eurazeo Growth.

The € 1.8 billion transaction, including cash and retention incentives, is subject to regulatory approval. Visa will fund the cash transaction.

Supported by PSD2

Tink’s business model is partly made possible by the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) of the European Union, which came into force in January 2018. The law obliges banks to give third parties access to the customer data they hold in order to promote competition and innovation in financial services.

But the PSD2 framework is also paving the way for new payment features that allow consumers to make payments directly from their bank accounts without relying on middlemen like card networks.

In the past few months, account-to-account payments have drawn a lot of attention from crypto startups who view it as a potentially cheap method of wallet funding.

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