Trustly closes acquisition of Ecospend after FCA approval

Payments supplier Trustly has announced the closing of the acquisition of UK-based Open Banking payments platform Ecospend, after FCA approval.

Together, Trustly and Ecospend connect to more than 80 banks and have a customer base of almost 50 million.

Additionally, they have a combined payments volume in the UK for 2022 of approximately £7.5bn ($9.76m).

Johan Tjärnberg, Group CEO of Trustly, said: “We are very excited that we have 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.

“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.”

James Hickman, Chief Commercial Officer at Ecospend, said: “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.”

Founded in 2017, Ecospend is an FCA-regulated pay-by-bank payments provider powering the next generation of payments and financial data services. Meanwhile, Customers of Ecospend come from several industries. The business has a significant contract with HMRC, the UK Government’s tax collection agency.

Meanwhile, in June last year, Trustly continued its UK expansion by launching its Open Banking product with Super Group’s flagship brand, Betway.