Stockholm-based fintech platform Tink gets second investment from PayPal, extends open banking support

The Stockholm based open banking platform Tink raised €90 million in funding, back in January this year. The company again received investment from PayPal and is extending support for the latter payment system in Europe. Tink is an open banking platform that enables banks, fintechs, and startups to develop data-driven financial services. This new deal is an extended commercial agreement between the two companies, which now includes all counties within the European Economic Area. 

Under the deal, PayPal will employ Tink’s open banking and account aggregation technology to enable new user experiences for its customers. The expanded relationship and the new investment is linked to toTink’s previous €90 million investment round. Silicon Canals spoke exclusively with Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, to find out more about the company, funding details and more. 

Expediting growth and going future proof

Tink is focussed on growing and strengthening its services with the newly acquired funds. Kjellén comments on the funding, “€90 million investment round will facilitate Tink’s ambitious growth plans over the next year and beyond — helping us become the preferred pan-European provider of digital banking services and to offer the technology needed for banks, fintechs, and startups to leverage the opportunities of open banking and enable them to successfully develop financial services of the future.”

Banking and finance landscape is expected to be turbulent in 2020 due to the impact of coronavirus on the economy. Regardless, most banks are going beyond  PSD2 compliance to offer better services to their customers and this is where Tink comes in. “We help them (banks) manage the aggregation, enrichment and payment initiation at scale — and for a wider array of use cases. By developing our open banking platform and increasing our connectivity even further, we can be the strategic partner that helps our customers achieve these goals — enabling them to take full advantage of the open banking opportunity and create better financial services,” says  Kjellén. 

As for 2020, the company has already put some plans in motion to support its growth. Kjellén remarks, “We are always looking for ways to grow and improve our coverage and offering and have already taken steps towards this goal in 2020. For instance, in March, we acquired Spanish account aggregation provider, Eurobits as part of our expansion strategy across Europe — a move which saw us increase our bank and financial institution connectivity in 17 markets, predominantly in Europe and in Latin America. “

Dealing with COVID-19 

The current situation with the pandemic is certainly difficult, but it didn’t dampen the entrepreneurial spirit of businesses. For Tink, the first and foremost concern was to ensure the good health of its employees. “ We have taken a number of precautionary measures across our European offices and will continue to adjust and respond with the safety of our Tink family and extended community primary in our minds,” Kjellén notes. 

Tink is a cloud-based Platform as a Service or PaaS company, which means that its services don’t really rely on people being physically present. Kjellén says, “From a business perspective, Tink is a cloud-based PaaS company which means that our operations are not bound to a single office or location. Therefore, the performance of our platform will not be impacted. Tink is committed to ensuring the continuity of operations and all projects, even during these stressful times.”

Image credits: Tink

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