Open banking platform TrueLayer teams up with CMC Markets to boost client onboarding and payments

Online trading platform CMC Markets has teamed up with TrueLayer and will leverage its open banking technology to help bolster its client onboarding and payments.

CMC Markets, a London-listed firm, offers online trading in shares, where clients can trade thousands of financial instruments across forex, indices, and commodities for example.

The move by CMC Markets to appoint TrueLayer to boost client onboarding and customer payments comes amid growing usage of open banking in the UK with now over five million users in the UK.

According to research by YouGov and TrueLayer, nearly two thirds (64 per cent) of current and prospective investors are more likely to trust a provider that offers instant payments, which open banking offers.

TrueLayer says open banking can deliver more “efficient” and “cost-effective” processes for investment platforms like CMC Markets.

For example, it says it can enhance the onboarding process through enhanced verification, meaning customers’ identities and credit worthiness can be assessed in seconds, rather than days, compared to manual bank statement checks. 

By pre-verifying customers’ details, TrueLayer says it can also simplify payment setup, meaning fewer failed transactions.

The open banking platform, founded in 2016 by Francesco Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti, also says it will support an improved experience for CMC Markets customers when funding their investment accounts. 

By using Instant, secure account-to-account payments via open banking, it removes the need to enter any card or bank account details, using biometrics to authenticate identity and confirm the payment.

Real-time payment confirmation also provides CMC Markets with an assurance that every transaction has been authorised and customers have the funds available to trade, TrueLayer said.

Colleen Bohm, head of payments at CMC Markets, said: “CMC’s focus on delivering an enhanced investor experience led us to examine what role open banking could play in supporting our digital strategy. That included elements such as verifying customers and delivering more efficient payments.”

In April, TrueLayer created the industry’s first variable recurring payments (VRP) API for both sweeping and non-sweeping payments.

The launch made TrueLayer the first open banking provider to support different recurring payment types through a single API.