Trustly acquires Ecospend to strengthen its position in UK

Swedish Open Banking payments platform Trustly acquires British Open Finance technology company Ecospend to “deliver a market-leading product” and further accelerate its expansion in the UK.

The deal will see Trustly benefit from Ecospend’s strong UK account-to-account (A2A) product and connectivity with more than 80 UK banks. 

Commenting on the announcement, Johan Tjärnberg, Group CEO of Trustly, said: “I am delighted to welcome Ecospend to Trustly. This is a perfect strategic fit.”

Metin Erkman, founder of Ecospend, added: “Together with Trustly we will be able to continue to raise the bar for service excellence to our customers (…) and broaden our capabilities to stretch across Europe and further markets.”

With the UK being one of Trustly’s core growth markets, the acquisition of Ecospend now accelerates the Swedish company’s journey towards that target.

Ecospend provides Open Banking-based payments and financial data services to clients in a range of industries, including the public sector where the company has a key contract with the UK government’s tax authority HMRC, which went live in March 2021. Over the past year, Ecospend has processed over £5 billion’s worth in A2A payments to over 2 million consumers.

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals. The parties have not disclosed the size and terms of the deal, but some reports estimated it at approximately SEK600 million (£48.6 million).