Wrap up of 2021: A new chapter of open banking begins

December 20, 2021 | Louise Basse

As 2021 has come to an end, it’s time to look back at the year that has passed – and it’s safe to say that 2021 has been an amazing and eventful year for Aiia. 

With a relentless emphasis on quality, we worked hard to expand our open banking platform across Europe. We closed new partnerships in new markets, and we continued to develop our products with the help of our valued customers – and of course, 2021 became the year where Aiia was acquired by a very special ‘someone’. 

We joined Mastercard 

There’s no doubt that joining Mastercard is one of the most memorable moments of the year for Aiia. We were beyond excited when it was announced that Mastercard had entered an agreement to acquire Aiia in September. Just a few months later, the deal was completed and Aiia officially became a part of Mastercard. Commenting on the acquisition, the CEO & Founder of Aiia, Rune Mai, said: 

“For the past decade, we’ve worked to build Aiia into a leading and quality-driven open banking platform, which has onboarded hundreds of banks and fintechs onto safe and secure open banking rails. We have worked closely alongside banks, customers and local authorities to ensure that our APIs show the true effect of open banking. We’re excited to become a part of Mastercard and progress our journey of empowering people to bring their financial data and accounts into play – safely and transparently.”  

Mastercard was an early advocate of open banking across the globe. The company has made bold moves to blend its proprietary technology and multi-rail payments expertise with strong partners offering complementary services. We believe it's a match made in heaven and we’re super excited to start the next chapter of open banking as a Mastercard company. 

New partnerships and valued customers  

Needless to say, the growth of Aiia and our platform wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing customers that have used our open banking platform in 2021 to create personalised and convenient services for their customers and users. 

To mention a few of them, the major payment service provider Svea teamed up with Aiia in January to boost the checkout game for a wide range of merchants in Finland. Commenting on the partnership, Tomas Lundqvist, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Products at Svea Finland, said:

“The payment industry is developing at a high pace and we want to stay on top and ahead of these developments at Svea. We’ve been looking into open banking opportunities for a while and are happy to take the next steps in partnering with Aiia to deliver, expand and explore new opportunities in the e-commerce landscape.” 

In February, one of the largest IT providers in the Danish financial sector Bankdata partnered with Aiia with the vision to be the leading digital partner for the banking sector in Denmark. Now, all eight member banks will be able to offer full access to account aggregation, as well as payment initiation, to more than a quarter of the Danish population with Aiia. 

In April, the Danish banking central BEC also teamed up with Aiia to enable 27 banks and more than 2.1 million banking customers in Denmark with open banking. Over time, the partnership will give 20-30 percent of Danish banking customers the ability to see and pay with accounts from other banks as well as get a full overview of their finances across several banks.

In the fall, Danske Bank UK partnered with Aiia to deliver innovative digital solutions to help its more than 20.000 business and corporate customers in the UK and Ireland through its business banking platform, District. The partnership opened up for a new market entry for Aiia – and we’re still focusing heavily on empowering the UK and Ireland with our high-quality and privacy-driven approach to open banking.

In November, Aiia partnered with Netcompany which is one of the most successful software technology companies in the Nordics. The company is launching ‘mit.dk’, a new platform to streamline digital communication between the Danish people and public and private sector companies. The platform is set to bring open banking powered payments to the masses by enabling Danish citizens to pay bills and invoices securely and safely in one place. 

No words can describe how much we value all of our customers and partners – and we’re excited to collaborate even closer in 2022.

Expanding across Europe

2021 also became the year where we expanded our open banking platform across Europe with an emphasis on quality. 

We've spent years operating in the Nordics to build the platform together with large-scale banks. The result of that is a strong model for building quality into an open banking market where the PSD2 interfaces of banks might not always deliver on that agenda – and now, we have a European open banking infrastructure with a strong strategic focus on simplicity and compliance with local laws and regulation. 

Our goal is to reach high quality in all European markets fast – and just as Aiia did in the Nordics, we want to do it in close collaboration with our customers. That’s why we decided to create an SMB Growth Programme in which we encourage small- and medium-sized businesses with any use case to access our open banking platform. 

Our programme is dedicated to help businesses shape the future of finance by improving European open banking rails for all. We partner our open banking know-how, expertise and powerful platform performance with businesses who think like us: Companies that are eager to change, challenge and create the financial services of tomorrow to bolster innovation and boost customer experiences.

If you’re an SMB looking to boost your service or platform with open banking, head over to our SMB Growth Programme for more information. 

That’s a wrap for 2021. We wish all of you a Happy New Year and we look forward to an enriching 2022!