London-based unicorn TrueLayer has got some good news out of Africa as it has picked up a deal with fintech firm Lemonade Finance.
Founded in 2020, Lemonade Finance is based in California but “was built to serve the African diaspora”, with a focus on enabling Nigerians, Ghanaians and Kenyans in the UK to send money back to friends and family.
Afeez Gbotosho, Head of Product at Lemonade Finance, comments: “Ensuring we provide a secure, fast and cost-efficient way for Africans in the UK to send funds through the platform then led us to examine how to integrate instant payments through open banking.”
With this in mind, Lemonade Finance has implemented TrueLayer’s open banking platform. Through TrueLayer, customers can connect their bank account to the Lemonade Finance platform, enabling the firm to verify the account and confirm the payee’s details.
Customers can then send funds directly from their bank to Lemonade Finance, using TrueLayer’s account-to-account payments, removing the need to manually enter card details or share their bank credentials.
This latest deal is more good news for the energetic TrueLayer.
As reported last month, TrueLayer was one step ahead of others as its VRP API became available for customers to use for both sweeping and non-sweeping use cases. This follows on from December 2021 when NatWest made the industry’s first open banking VRP with the help of TrueLayer. (Last week, in an “industry first”, NatWest said it signed agreements with TrueLayer, GoCardless and Crezco to offer VRP as a new payment option for businesses and consumers.)
Prior to that, TrueLayer bagged fintech deals with MogoPlus and Douugh in Australia; ETX Capital in London; and with investment platform Tillit.
In other open banking news this week, London-based Yapily says it has signed an agreement with credit bureau company SCHUFA to buy German fintech firm finAPI.
The acquisition will double Yapily’s customer base, adding finAPI customers to its roster, including over 50 enterprise firms in the financial, insurance and IT industries.
Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO of Yapily, stated: “Within three years from launch, we have commercialised our platform, grown our customer base, and now have the largest open banking payments volumes in Europe.”
