UK’s Nationwide Makes Open Banking FinTech Investments

U.K. financial institution Nationwide Building Society has made an investment in open banking FinTech BankiFi, the companies revealed in an announcement Monday (Sept. 23).

With a focus on business banking, BankiFi offers financial institutions a range of “micro services” that those banks can integrate and deploy to their own business clients via application programming interfaces (APIs).

Nationwide did not disclose the value of its investment in the company, though the firms noted that the funding comes as the bank plans to launch its own business current account. Investing in BankiFi means it can augment its business banking offering by adding on additional features including payments, invoicing, lending, accounting and value-added tax (VAT) submission.

BankiFi noted that its solutions can enable banks to service their corporate customers across a range of stages and sizes, from sole traders to SMBs to large multinational corporations. The company added that increasingly, banks are becoming the go-to source of third-party financial service providers and their products.

“We truly believe that the value creation in Open Banking centers around the business customer,” said BankiFi Founding Partner Mark Hartley in a statement. “They deserve financial and banking services that are wrapped around their daily lives, offered by a robust partner that can offer continuity and a flexible approach.

“Banks and Building Societies can bundle our micro services into any bundle they or their customers might choose and offer it through the channel they know an use,” he continued, adding that banks must also consolidate their third party app offerings “without sending the customers off to meander through a ‘jungle of apps.’”

Nationwide said that its investment in BankiFi is part of its $62 million fund established last year to promote collaborations between Nationwide and FinTechs and other startups.

“The Society continues to invest for the future,” said Nationwide’s Deputy Chief Executive Tony Prestedge in a statement. “Investing in startups like BankiFi will help us explore new capabilities and technologies that will help deliver our technology strategy both now and in the future.”