Swedish mobile banking outfit Tink has ended the week on some good news. The firm has picked up $10 million in a Series B funding round led by Swedish investment firm Creades and SEB Venture Capital, the venture arm of Swedish bank SEB.
That $10 million will go toward international expansion and adapting to new European banking technical standards so that its “read-only” personal finance app can expand into something more truly resembling a virtual bank.
According to Tink CEO Daniel Kjellén, Tink’s current service — offering consumers a window into their spending habits by linking to various bank accounts and credit cards and then sending them data about said spending via a “newsfeed”-like interface — is on the verge of being able to do much more thanks to the new Payment Service Directive (PSD2) approved by the EU regulator in January.
The new directives, according to Kjellén, open up European banking infrastructure by allowing third parties to initiate payments into the banks’ systems, thus letting an app like Tink actually make withdrawals and deposits, like a proper banking app.
“Tink is now the first company in the world to combine these two services to build a virtual bank where you can do all your day-to-day bank errands, across any account, in any bank,” Kjellén told TechCrunch.
“On top of this, we partner with the best banks and offer the users to cherry-pick the best mortgage rates, best savings accounts, best credit cards, etc., from multiple banks. We also give the user all the traditional Tink personal finance management (PFM) magic and unbiased advice and smartness.”
The goal, says the CEO, is, first and foremost, to expand beyond Sweden’s boundaries.
“Today, we’re live in Sweden with 300,000 users on Tink 1.0 and are currently running beta tests in 10 additional European markets for international expansion later this year,” adds Kjellén.
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