Trustly closes acquisition of Ecospend
Ellie Duncan | News
27 Jan 2023
Stockholm-based global payments platform Trustly has closed its acquisition of UK-based Open Banking payments platform Ecospend, following approval from UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Combined, Trustly and Ecospend will have connectivity with over 80 banks and a consumer reach of approximately 50 million consumers.
The deal, which was initially announced in May 2022, sees Trustly expand into the UK.
Trustly, a digital account-to-account platform founded in 2008, said many of its UK customers are already benefiting from the partnership and the use of Ecospend’s Open Banking technology solutions.
“We are very excited that we have now officially closed the acquisition. This is an important milestone and is fully in line with Trustly’s ambitious target to be the game-changing market leader in the UK,” said Johan Tjärnberg, group CEO of Trustly.
“We can’t wait to continue our expansion journey as a collective team, bringing best-in-class Open Banking solutions to both consumers and merchants.”
Founded in 2017, Ecospend is an FCA-regulated pay-by-bank payments provider and has a contract with the tax authority of the UK government, HMRC.
Ecospend’s James Hickman
James Hickman, chief commercial officer at Ecospend, added: “The UK is the largest digital payments market in Europe and represents a huge opportunity for us. We have seen an incredible appetite from both consumers and businesses to embrace Open Banking and the simple and secure payments that it enables.
“Trustly and Ecospend will be able to excel in this space with the most comprehensive and compelling solution on the market.”
Earlier this week, Ecospend revealed that more than 94,000 customers have used its ‘Pay-by-Bank’ technology to make £123 million in Self-Assessment payments via the HMRC app since February 2022.
It reported that more than 6,700 Self-Assessment customers paid almost £5.9 million in tax via its ‘Pay-by-Bank’ technology in October last year, compared to around 2,500 customers in February the same year, who paid £1.8 million.
