Mastercard grows open banking offering with Aiia buy

Mastercard has entered into an agreement to acquire Aiia, as part of move to expand further into the open banking space.

Mastercard’s acquisition will provide a connection to banks through Aiia’s API

The firm says its new acquisition will provide it a direct connection to banks through a single application programming interface (API).

An Aiia acquisition allows Mastercard to deliver credit scoring and decisioning applications — through 2020 acquisition Finicity — to European clients, while Finicity in the US will help deliver Aiia’s account information services and payment applications to US customers.

The acquisition is anticipated to close by the end of the year. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The acquisition of the Danish open banking provider marks the latest move by Mastercard in the space.

In 2019, the global payments company launched its first open banking connectivity offering in the UK and Poland through a partnership with Token.

In 2021, it released Mastercard Payment Services, a set of account-to-account payment and open banking capabilities, following the majority acquisition of Nets’ Corporate Services business.

Mastercard chief product officer, Craig Vosburg, says: “The addition of Aiia anchors our European open banking efforts and allows us to continue to meet our customers where they are.

Aiia CEO and founder, Rune Mai, says: “For the past decade […] we have worked closely alongside banks, customers and local authorities to ensure that our APIs show the true effect of open banking.”