TrueLayer lands $35m funding round from Tencent and Temasek

The Open Banking software developer plans expansion across Germany, France, Italy and Spain by the end of the year, before looking at Asian and Australian markets.

Open Banking pioneer TrueLayer has landed $35m of funding to expand its operations in Europe, before pushing into Asia and Australia.

The London-based software development firm allows people to share or aggregate their financial information from different providers in real time. The fintechs it works with include Monzo, Zopa, ClearScore, Plum, Emma and CreditLadder.

It secured Series C funding from Chinese technology giant Tencent and Singapore government-owned fund Temasek. Existing backers venture capital firms Northzone and Anthemis also took part in the funding round.

TrueLayer, founded by Francesco Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti in 2016, has raised a total of $47m to date.

The business said it will boost its Open Banking platform across Europe so that fintechs can make use of “account aggregation, payment initiation, bank account verification and other use cases” on a greater scale.

New markets

The firm plans to expand into Germany, France, Italy and Spain by the end of this year, and then will look at other markets around the globe “with Asia and Australia being considered amongst its first destinations”.

A change in European Union law at the start of the year has brought in Open Banking, which means consumers can allow businesses, other than their bank, to access their financial data.

Advocates say this potentially allows customers to get better deals, such as cheaper overdrafts, and to speed up the switching process.

Chief executive Francesco Simoneschi said: “Open Banking is removing friction and barriers of entry from banking so that consumers will benefit from modern, fair and competitive access to financial products and services.”

Jeppe Zink, a partner at Northzone, added: "We are still at the very beginning of opening up the banking system, for the benefit of consumers everywhere. This new financing will help TrueLayer pursue their mission at pace, to enable more people across the world to bank without friction."