Danske Bank opens up for payment initiation

July 08, 2020 | Rune Kallehauge

"Danske Bank is even closer to becoming the preferred banking interface, allowing their customers to manage their finances across banks in one place" said our Head of Partnerships, Jonas Vogt Rasmussen, in a recent article published in Finextra. Read the full piece below and learn why Danske Bank should be on top of our minds when talking about open banking innovation in Europe.

Recently Nordic API Gateway announced that it has extended its partnership with Denmark's leading bank to enable customers to pay from other banks within Danske Bank’s mobile banking app. In this way, Danske Bank is taking an important step to becoming the preferred banking interface. The new payments are expected to launch in August 2020 starting in Denmark.

With more than three million personal banking customers across the Nordics, Danske Bank has experienced a rising customer trend as more have started banking with several banks over the past couple of years. In addition to being the first bank to provide customers across Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland with a full financial overview via account aggregation back in 2018, Danske Bank is now taking their open banking strategy to the next level by implementing open banking payments. This makes it possible for their customers to transfer money frictionlessly between all their accounts in one place, regardless of what bank they hold.

Commenting the new payment initiation feature, Line Munkholm, Group Head of Digital Banking at Danske Bank, says:

“In a fast-moving world that is headed towards more openness and transparency, our strategy is to support our customers with the best possible tools to handle their everyday finances. We’ve been working closely with Nordic API Gateway since 2017 and we’re happy to continue developing the partnership. [This gives] our customers huge flexibility as they’re now able to make payments and transfers between their own accounts across several different banks. For us, it’s all about making it easier for customers to gain a full financial overview – no matter how many banks they have.”

It's further expected that the payment initiation service will solve 90% of the current money transfer use cases that Danske Bank’s retail customers have today when transferring money.

Commenting on the news and the strengths of owning the interface for banks, Head of Partnerships at Nordic API Gateway, Jonas Vogt Rasmussen, says:

“It’s a bold and innovative move from Danske Bank integrating both account aggregation and payment initiation in their mobile banking app. And it's a clear testimony that shows how banks have moved the focus from compliance to opportunity when it comes to PSD2. Danske Bank is a truly forward-thinking financial institution that has leveraged open banking since day one to support new customer demands and stay ahead of the competition in the financial sector. With the launch of payment initiation, Danske Bank is even closer to becoming the preferred banking interface, allowing their customers to manage their finances across banks in one place.”

Nordic API Gateway is experiencing a great interest from banks across Europe that want to leverage the same opportunities. So far, only a few banks have combined account aggregation and payment initiation. Danske Bank is only the second bank in the Nordics to launch with these capabilities after Norwegian bank DNB, which is also enabled by Nordic API Gateway.

Explore open banking payments with Nordic API Gateway

Do you want to explore how you can optimise instant, real-time data and account-to-account payments access to build innovative services that fit the demands of tomorrow?

Get in touch with Nordic API Gateway today to find out how.