Portugal’s banking heavyweight, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), has inked a new partnership with Swedish open banking platform Tink, reports Tanya Andreasyan of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

CGD’s newly launched app – Dabox – has Tink’s products integrated into it, namely aggregation payment initiation, data enrichments and personal finance management (PFM). Tink’s cloud-based open banking platform will underpin the app, which is now being rolled out to CDG’s domestic customer base of four million people. The vendor said it will help customers “to make smarter financial decisions.”

Tink has been working with Portugal-based payments processor SIBS, helping the country’s APIs to meet the standard required under PSD2 regulations. The implementation period took six months in total, says Tink, including integrating the PSD2 APIs, applying machine learning (ML) to all categories and launching PFM in Dabox.

“The open banking movement is fundamentally changing the financial services industry – transforming how millions of customers engage with banking services,” said Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink. He described CGD as “a forward-thinking partner” and says Dabox will give CGD’s customers “a complete overview of their financial lives.”

The new app, which is launched today (24 September) will enable users to see their current accounts from all Portuguese banks and make payments and transfers between these accounts.

CGD “is undergoing a major digital transformation,” said Maria João Carioca, executive board member of CGD. Tink – “an innovative and challenging partner” – will enable the bank “to combine innovation and a ‘fresh look’ on the financial business with the universal service and trustworthiness that have been CGD’s trademark,” Carioca added.

CGD is largest bank in Portugal, wholly owned by the state since its inception back in 1876. It is a universal bank offering commercial and investment banking, asset management and specialised financing services. It has total assets of over €91 billion.

Founded in Stockholm in 2012, Tink has 250 employees and works with the likes of PayPal, NatWest, SEB, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas Fortis, Nordea and Klarna. Insight Venture Partners, Heartcore Capital, SEB, Creades, Nordea Ventures, ABN Amro Digital Impact Fund and PayPal are investors in Tink.

Tink demonstrated its API platform at FinovateEurope 2019

For its first partnership in the U.K., Swedish open banking startup Tink inked a deal this week with major U.K. bank NatWest.

NatWest will integrate Tink’s PFM capabilities and Data Enrichment offering, a tool that cleans and syncs data to categorize transactions for data-driven sales and decision-making optimization. These two enhancements will offer NatWest consumers better insight into their personal spending habits.

NatWest, which joins Tink’s other bank customers BNP Paribas Fortis, Nordea, ABN Amro, SEB, and Klarna, will offer the new PFM capabilities to customers starting in the fourth quarter of this year.

“The partnership with NatWest is a great testament to the quality of our technology — and to the dedication to improve the digital offering and customer experience,” said Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellen. “We believe there are massive opportunities for those who choose to leverage new technology to build greater engagement with their customers. This partnership is proof of just that.”

In addition to its PFM and Data Enrichment products, Tink also offers Account Aggregation, which connects to 2,500+ banks and is live in 10 markets, with coverage across Europe coming by the end of this year. The company also offers Payment Initiation, which allows customers to make payments from a bank’s website or mobile app. In addition to money transfers, Payment Initiation allows customers to transact online and pay bills and invoices.

Founded in 2012, Tink counts more than 500,000 app users and has 150 employees across two offices. The two-time Best of Show-winning company most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019 in London.

Finland-based Mash will leverage account aggregation technology from fellow Nordic fintech Tink as part of an initiative to enhance the customer experience and offer new services. The company plans to use Tink to improve the onboarding process for new users as well as provide more control and insight into their financial accounts.

Calling Tink a “perfect match,” Mash CEO James Hickson praised Tink’s “pan-European connectivity” and work in Finland in support of the new partnership. “The quality of the aggregated data that Tink can access makes them a reliable source which will enable us to deliver a better service to our customers by making more informed decisions,” Hickson said.

Founded in 2007, Mash leverages proprietary algorithms, machine learning, and automation to provide consumer lending and payments solutions to thousands of customers a day. With offices in Finland, Sweden, Poland, Luxembourg, and Spain, the company has raised more than $153 million in funding (€138m).

“Mash is one of our partners who chooses to leverage the opportunities brought about by open banking to become more data-driven and deliver a better customer service,” Tink CEO and co-founder Daniel Kjellén said. He added that creating a win-win proposition for both Mash and its customers is “exactly what open banking is all about.”

With a single API integration, Tink offers cloud-based account aggregation (AIS) and payment initiation (PIS) services to help financial services companies bring new solutions to their customers. Tink provides data enrichment and categorization to ensure accuracy of user financial information, and offerings such as the its Tink Link SDK give companies an easy way to create a bank- and market-agnostic “one user authentication journey.”

Tink demonstrated its API platform at FinovateEurope 2018. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company announced a partnership with Danish fintech Lunar Way in March, supporting payment initiation and PFM for Lunar Way’s mobile app. In February, Tink made even bigger fintech headlines, raking in $63 million (€56m) in new funding and going live in five new markets in Europe.

We featured Tink in our recent look at how banks can compete with Apple’s new credit card.