Cheap payment and good customer journeys with open bank
Tink is the European leader in the “banking revolution” open banking. Through ICT-Norway, they want knowledge exchange, dialogue and networking. Read more about open banking and Tink’s ambitions in this member interview.
Tink is Europe’s leading open banking platform and the engine behind tomorrow’s financial services. ‘Open banking’ is a broad term that describes a technology (API) that provides consumers and opportunities to share their transaction data with an authorized security, given explicit consent. This means that the user can manage their own data and decide for themselves when they want to share it with an authorized company in exchange for services.
– It also provides consumer opportunities to instruct third parties to send a payment from their account. “PSD2” is the term for the EU directive that requires banks to offer such APIs, says Vegard Skaar Haveland, Norwegian CEO of Tink.
A bankless banking service
This means that you no longer need to be a bank to use banking infrastructure in products and services. Other businesses can integrate banking and transaction data into their services and products.
Through APIs for over 3,400 financial institutions, we make it possible for companies to create new and better products using banking and transaction data as well as payments in their own areas – all through a developer-friendly API.
Haveland explains that Tink offers cheap payments with good customer journeys in the customers’ own areas. With an integration, you can offer payment services throughout Europe.
Tink started in Sweden in 2012 and today has over 500 employees with operations in 18 countries from 14 offices. They have a wide range of customers, from small Norwegian technology companies, to established players such as Paypal, Nordea and American Express.
– The potential for innovation is enormous, and one can expect that there will be a number of new services that benefit the consumer, Haveland explains.
Visa has also shown interest and submitted a bid for the company. If European competition authorities approve the purchase, Tink will be sold to the US financial company for as much as EUR 1.8 billion.
– Want to share knowledge
As a member of ICT-Norway, Tink wants to meet industry players in a neutral arena and receive a two-way learning outcome. To begin with, they will be active in the Fintech Forum and want to use the meeting place for knowledge exchange, dialogue and networking.
– We experience that ICT-Norway does a formidable job of promoting good industry conditions through various forums and meeting places. As a European leader in open banking, we want to be part of the conversation and help share our knowledge and perspective about tomorrow’s digital financial services, he says.
Working to train industries
Tink is now in a strong growth phase where they are expanding geographically and at the same time expanding the product portfolio.
– Since we operate in a new brand with unprecedented innovation opportunities, we work hard to inform and educate industries about the opportunities this provides.
– What is the most important thing you as a major player can do to help grow the entire industry?
– We work hard to ensure that the banks’ APIs are good and in accordance with the regulations, as well as to convince the established players that this represents an opportunity for a risk. This benefits the smaller players as the industry is largely at the mercy of the banks offering good and stable interfaces.
Like others in the ICT industry, it is necessary to have more competent employees.
– Tink is now in a strong growth phase, and then access to the best heads is absolutely crucial to success. There is fierce competition for the best developers and we therefore invest enormously in recruitment and corporate culture, Haveland concludes.