Definition
Tink is a Swedish fintech founded in Stockholm in 2012, which has become one of the European leaders in B2B Open Banking.
It covers more than 3,400 banks across 18 European markets and provides a complete toolkit: aggregation (AIS), payment initiation (PIS), transaction enrichment, credit scoring and KYC. Acquired by Visa in March 2022 for €1.8bn, it became the network's European Open Banking arm — a deal made possible after the DoJ blocked the acquisition of Plaid in 2021.
History
- 2012 — founded in Stockholm.
- 2014 — consumer PFM app in Sweden.
- 2017 — B2B pivot (aggregation API), dropping the consumer app.
- 2018-2020 — major fundraising, EU expansion.
- 2021-2022 — acquisition by Visa announced (€1.8bn) then completed.
Offering
- Aggregation (AIS): REST API for accounts, balances, transactions, webhooks, consent management.
- Payment initiation (PIS): Pay by Bank, SCT and SCT Inst, domestic methods (Bizum, Swish).
- Transaction Enrichment: categorisation, merchant logo, MCC normalisation, subscription detection.
- Risk Decisioning: credit scoring based on flows (a competitor to Algoan in France).
- KYC / Income Check: identity and income verification, key for BNPL and credit.
Coverage and model
Strong coverage in the Nordics, the UK and Ireland, as well as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal — 18 countries in all. A business model per API call or connected user, an enterprise subscription for large accounts, and growing bundling with the other Visa services.
Customers (~8,000 companies)
Neobanks (N26, Revolut, Bunq), PayPal (aggregation for Pay in 4 EU), Klarna (Open Banking and scoring), banks using Tink internally (BNP Paribas, NatWest, ABN Amro), and Apple Pay Later in the UK.
Tink vs competitors
| Player | Origin | Coverage | Positioning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tink (SE/Visa) | Stockholm | 18 markets, 3,400+ banks | EU generalist leader |
| Plaid (US) | San Francisco | US, EU progressive | US leader |
| TrueLayer (UK) | London | Strong UK, EU | UK PIS leader |
| Bridge (FR) | Paris | FR + EU | FR leader |
| Yapily (UK) | London | EU + UK | API-first, headless |
| Fintecture (FR) | Paris | FR + EU | Merchant PIS pure player |
Tink is generally considered the European generalist leader, with the broadest bank coverage.
The Visa acquisition
Visa was looking to enter Open Banking after the failed Plaid deal; Tink, more palatable to the European authorities, allowed it to combine Visa cards, AIS, PIS and Visa B2B. Tink keeps its brand and team but becomes a strategic piece against alternative payments (PIS, A2A) and the potential erosion of card volumes.
Compliance
Certified FAPI 1.0 Advanced (OpenID Foundation), authorised as an AISP + PISP in the relevant EU countries, and compatible with Berlin Group, OBIE UK and STET FR.
What Tink is not
- Not a bank: AISP + PISP status only.
- Not a wallet: no storage of funds.
- Not a card acquiring PSP (even though owned by Visa).
- Not open source: a closed B2B SaaS.
- Not independent: a Visa subsidiary since 2022.
In the PSD2 / Open Finance ecosystem
Tink is central: a PSD2 leader, it is preparing the FIDA extension (savings, insurance, credit), integrates VoP, benefits from the IPR as a lever for PIS adoption, and plans to integrate the EUDI Wallet for KYC. For Visa, it is the Open Banking weapon against Wero/EPI.
Concrete examples
- PayPal Pay in 4 EU: Tink assesses repayment capacity.
- N26, Bunq, Revolut: multi-bank EU aggregation via Tink.
- Klarna: credit scoring and KYC via Tink.
- Apple Pay Later UK: Tink integration (before the US wind-down).
- Valuation: sold for €1.8bn in 2022, after a fundraise valuing it at ~€680m in 2020.
- Conformance: one of the first EU fintechs certified FAPI Advanced.