Deals: Tink scores $10M for its virtual banking app

By Steve O’Hear for Techcrunch.com

Sweden’s Tink, a mobile banking app, has raised $10 million in Series B funding in a round led by Swedish investment firm Creades, and SEB Venture Capital, the venture arm of Swedish bank SEB.

The new capital will be used to help the startup expand internationally and, by taking advantage of new European banking technical standards, evolve its product beyond a ‘read only’ personal finance app to something Tink CEO Daniel Kjellén is calling a virtual bank.

Launched in Sweden in 2013, and available for iOS and Android, the first version of Tink’s mobile app lets you keep a handle on your personal finances, by linking the app to banks accounts and credit cards. From this ‘read only’ data it presents insights into spending habits via a news-feed style stream in a bid to make it fun and useful. Broadly speaking it might be compared to Mint and Level Money in the U.S., and Numbrs, Bankin’ and Money Dashboard in Europe.

However, Kjellén says that the new Payment Service Directive (PSD2) approved by the EU regulator in January opens up European banking infrastructure, and therefore competition, by enabling third parties to initiate payments into the banks’ systems, thus letting an app like Tink actually able to make withdrawals and deposits, like a proper banking app.

“Tink is now the first company in the world to combine these two services to build a virtual bank where you can do all your day-to-day bank errands, across any account in any bank,” he tells me.

“On top of this we partner with the best banks and offer the users to cherry-pick the best mortgage rates, best savings accounts, best credit cards etc. from multiple banks. We also give the user all the traditional Tink personal finance management (PFM)-magic and unbiased advice and smartness”.

To that end, my understanding is that SEB Venture Capital investment is strategic. Tink will power PFM features for SEB’s own banking app, along with SEB becoming Tink’s fifth largest shareholder.

“Today we’re live in Sweden with 300,000 users on Tink 1.0 and are currently running beta tests in 10 additional European markets for international expansion later this year,” adds Kjellén.

First appeared at techcrunch