When it works, it works: Just five weeks after their seed funding A further €18.5 million ($20 million) will go to Ivy, which has developed an API with which it aims to enable open banking payments around the world. Direct account-to-account payments eliminate the need for intermediaries like Visa and thus their transaction fees. So far, however, providers of open banking technologies have largely limited themselves to domestic transactions in a single currency – Ivy aims to change that. In an interview with Techcrunch, Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO of Ivy:
“The most important insight we gained was that while Open Banking is going global, the technology is very national.”
And further:
"Interoperability is key from a consumer perspective. We believe that in 10 years, there will be a single point of contact for open banking, just as Visa created for card payments. Even if it doesn't work globally yet, a global network needs to be built."
Ivy plans to use the fresh capital from the Series A financing round to expand its banking operations to additional regions and acquire merchant customers in these markets. The platform currently offers its services for the EMEA region, Southeast Asia, and the US, with plans to expand to the Latin American market soon.
Fintech investor Valar Ventures led the round. Andrew McCormack from Valar Ventures comments on the financing as follows:
"Ivy is building for account-to-account payments what Visa and Mastercard built for cards: a single, global access point for merchants and consumers. A powerful payments platform combined with intelligent routing that increases conversion and success rates for businesses—the market demand for Ivy's solution is extremely impressive."
