Mastercard today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Aiia, an European open banking technology provider offering a direct connection to banks through a single API, allowing its customers to develop and launch new digital solutions that meet the needs of everyday life, work and play.
“The value of open banking comes through empowering consumers and businesses to use their own data to obtain financial services solutions simply, securely and quickly. The addition of Aiia anchors our European open banking efforts and allows us to continue to meet our customers where they are,” said Craig Vosburg, Chief Product Officer, Mastercard.
“For the past decade, we have worked to build Aiia into a leading and quality-driven open banking platform, which has onboarded hundreds of banks and fintechs onto safe and secure open banking rails. We have worked closely alongside banks, customers and local authorities to ensure that our APIs show the true effect of open banking. We’re excited to become a part of Mastercard and progress our journey of empowering people to bring their financial data and accounts into play – safely and transparently,” said Rune Mai, CEO & Founder, Aiia.
Today, Aiia has connections to more than 2,700 banks across Europe, processes more than 10 million bank logins, and more than a million account-to-account payments every month for large banks and e-commerce payment gateways. Aiia provides open banking services to a long list of banks, challenger banks, fintechs, accounting system providers and payment companies.
The transaction, which is anticipated to close by year’s end, is subject to customary closing conditions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
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Mastercard was an early advocate of open banking across the globe. In 2019, Mastercard launched its first open banking connectivity offering in the UK and Poland through a partnership with Token.
With the acquisition of Finicity in 2020, Mastercard bolstered a strong commitment to its customers by bringing together top-tier technology platforms, dedicated resources and a global infrastructure to catalyze innovation and continue to deliver localized customer service. This commitment continued earlier in 2021 with Mastercard Payment Services, a broader set of account-to-account payment and open banking capabilities gained in the acquisition of the majority of Nets’ Corporate Services business.
The connectivity of Aiia in Europe will enable Mastercard to deliver the credit decisioning and credit scoring applications of Finicity to European clients. Similarly, the connectivity of Finicity in the U.S. will help deliver the account information services and payment applications of Aiia to U.S. clients – giving customers globally easier, faster and safer access to open banking services.
Aiia is a licensed Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) and Account Information Service Provider (AISP) and operates under the supervision of the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
