banked is a FinTech that offers an alternative to card schemes. Consumers can pay without entering financial data, there is no need to create an account, no financial details are shared, authorization is biometric, and the merchant receives funds in real time. Businesses use it to drive customer engagement and loyalty with incentives and rewards built into the checkout process. It also claims that its fees are up to 90% lower than traditional payment methods. In 2020, the London-based fintech raised £2,35 million in seed funding.
It has now raised a round of funding Serie A $20 million led by Bank of America and Edenred Capital Partners. These US investors will be part of the company's planned US expansion.
Existing investors Acrew, Force Over Mass, Firestartr, OM2, Love Ventures, Kuvi Capital and Paul Forster (founder of Indeed.com) also participated in the round again. New investors include Sidekick, 9Yards and Huey Lin (ex-PayPal). This means that Banked has raised a total investment to date of more than 30 million of dollars.
The market for account-to-account payments is growing and is forecast to reach $43.000 billion by 2026 in Europe, according to a study by Allied Market Research.
Faiz Ahmad, head of global transaction services at Bank of America, said: "We are pleased to be a leading investor for banked and have already demonstrated a proven ability to develop unique eCommerce solutions.”
banked It competes to some extent with Truelayer, Trustly, and Volt, but it doesn't just provide methodology and infrastructure, as it has a more comprehensive experience.
Brad Goodall, CEO of banked, said: “We are building a brand network for the benefit of all merchants and consumers: merchants who work with us benefit from being part of the ecosystem, for example, a more seamless payment, customer awareness and convenience with the method along with all the obvious benefits of much cheaper payments, less fraud, instant refunds, etc.”
