Danish fintech Lunar Way has partnered with Swedish fintech Tink to use the latter’s API platform to provide customers with an overview of their finances and initiate payments through the Lunar Way app, reports Henry Vilar of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

At the end of last year, Lunar received an account information service provider (AISP) license and a payment initiation service provider (PISP) license, the first fintech company in Denmark to do so.

These licenses commit banks to allow companies like Lunar Way to build new financial services on top of their data and infrastructure for the benefit of the users.

The partnership with Tink is aimed at accelerating this process, the firm says, making the most of its new licenses.

Lunar Way says that Tink’s entrepreneurial mindset and approach to the financial market are much like its own, which motivated the partnership.

Just under a month ago, Lunar Way received €13 million in funding to expand throughout the Nordics.

A few days before that, Tink was the one receiving a whopping €56 million to establish itself in Europe.

Tink demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show honors for its independent, consumer PFM app that gives users a PSD2-compliant, virtual banking experience. Founded in 2012, the company is led by CEO and co-founder Daniel Kjellén.

Swedish fintech Tink introduced its API developer platform today. With Tink’s API, developers will be able to take advantage of the company’s Account Aggregation and Categorization solutions to design and launch products for end users. The offering from the two-time Best of Show winner provides unanimous access to financial data from 300 FIs – all from a single API. By managing authentication and the customer-bank interaction, Tink’s platform frees developers to focus on the creative work of building and deploying new solutions for customers.

“Businesses can now come to us and implement something new in just a day, instead of having to wait for banks to open their APIs in two years time,” Tink CTO Fredrik Hedberg said. “By democratizing access to financial data, Tink is tearing down the barriers to innovation, and becoming the missing link that has stopped these ideas from becoming reality.”

The developer platform initially will support Nordic banks, with a broader European roll-out anticipated “soon.” The technology is already being used by firms like SBAB, which is leveraging the API to launch a “mortgage challenger” solution to help would-be homebuyers get the best deal on financing a new home.

Tink’s API will also help developers maximize the opportunity of PSD2, new Europe-wide regulations that will enable third-parties to access consumer financial data upon consent in order to deliver innovative, new products to consumers. And while PSD2 regulations will not be in full effect for another year and a half, companies like Tink have been preparing themselves for this kind of relationship between FIs and third party developers since inception.

“At Tink we have been trailblazing PSD2 since 2012,” Hedberg said. “The ability to aggregate data is what has enabled Tink to grow into the business it is today. We know from experience that there are countless developers out there with brilliant ideas – but innovation has been held back by the lack of access to financial data.”

The company noted in its announcement that because it aggregates more than PSD2 payments data, its platform can be effective for developers in a variety of sectors who want to leverage financial data to better enhance their customer-facing products.

Founded in 2012, and based in Stockholm, Tink demonstrated its account aggregation technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show for a second time. Last month, Tink announced a partnership with BNP Paribas Fortis that will integrate its account aggregation, PFM, and payment initiation technology into the Belgian bank’s mobile app. The company was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list last June. In October, Tink picked up $16.5 million in funding which took the company’s total capital raised to more than $30 million, and set the stage for further expansion into the European market. Tink also announced a trio of new bank customers: Nordea, Nordnet, and fellow Finovate alum, Klarna.

Daniel Kjellén, Tink co-founder and CEO, participated in our FinovateEurope 2018 debate: Who Will Seize the Day & Really Profit from the Open Banking Revolution? at FinovateEurope 2018.

Best of Show winner Tink has forged a partnership with BNP Paribas Fortis that will integrate its aggregation, PFM, and payment initiation technology into the Belgian bank’s mobile banking applications. The integration will enable the aggregation of all financial data typically available on mobile banking apps and pave the way for new offerings for customers pursuant to the EU’s new, payment services directive (PSD2).

“We are beyond excited to partner with such a forward leaning bank as BNP Paribas Fortis,” Tink CEO Daniel Kjellén said. “Our product is in great hands since we share the view on how the future of open banking will be.”

In a statement, Tink said the first stage of the partnership will include the release of a new, multi-banking app for Hello Bank! in the summer of 2018. Tink and BNP Paribas Fortis will collaborate on updating the bank’s Easy Banking mobile app by the fall.

“The partnership is proof of a retail banking market that is becoming fully transparent and customer centric, where the innovators who choose to invest early in technology will gain insights that can attract new customers and expand existing ones,” Kjellén said.

BNP Paribas Fortis CEO Max Jadot said that collaboration with “successful FinTechs” and integrating those technologies into their ecosystem was “part of the DNA” of the bank. “We strongly believe that technology and changing legislation, such as PSD2, offer exciting opportunities for banks and their clients,” Jadot said. “Clients of banks can expect increased convenience and remain at all times in control of their data.”

A subsidiary of BNP Paribas founded in 1990, BNP Paribas Fortis is the largest bank in Belgium, and is the latest bank to partner with Tink. The Swedish fintech made agreements with Nordea, Nordnet, and fellow Finovate alum Klarna in 2017, and added SEB and ABN AMRO as partners in 2016.

Tink demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show for its independent PFM app that combines aggregation and account information with payment initiation services. Last fall, the company picked up an investment of $16.5 million in a round that brought its total capital to $30.5 million. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Stockholm, Tink earned a spot on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list last summer. The company has 50 employees and more than 400,000 Swedish users of its app.