Token secures $15 mn in Series B; to boost open banking digital payments across Europe

By Megha Bhattacharya

Open banking payments platform Token today announced a $15 million Series B financing round with new investments from SBI Investment Co. Ltd. and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV as well as from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures and the venture arm of BNP Paribas, Opera Tech Ventures. The funding is expected to help Token provide a simple account-to-account payments adoption path for large merchants, PSPs and banking-as-a-service platforms.

Todd Clyde, CEO, Token said, “Token’s payment volumes have more than doubled every month since March and our platform is now processing live transactions through PSD2 APIs from over 600 banks in 14 countries across Europe. This Series B investment reconfirms Token’s leadership in the open payments space and will ensure our platform development continues at pace.”

Yoshitaka Kitao, Director & Chairman of SBI Investment, commented, “The combination of Token’s unrivalled bank connectivity and depth in payment services clearly marks the company out as a market leader. We believe it has continued to outperform the competition throughout the year and has a clear roadmap for development in 2021. We’re very excited to be part of Token’s mission to equip the key players in the payments market with open payments capabilities.”

Token, established in 2016, is a payment initiation service provider that conducts an end-to-end payment through a PSD2-compliant bank API. It continues to build out its stack of open payment and data services, which are already powering a range of corporate and consumer use-cases, lowering the cost of digital payments across Europe and delivering API connectivity.

Recently, European payment solutions provider Contis announced a strategic partnership with Token in a bid to create new value for payment service providers, banks and merchants across Europe. The partnership is expected to enable Token’s merchant, digital wallet and PSP customers to perform account pay-outs and refunds via the Token platform using established payment rails, such as Faster Payments in the UK, SEPA and SEPA Instant across the EEA.

Gen Tsuchikawa, CEO and Chief Investment Manager for Sony Innovation Fund (SIF) and Chief Investment Officer for Innovation Growth Ventures (IGV), said, “Through our Innovation Growth Fund we invest in companies that develop innovative and scalable technologies for the world’s new and emerging ecosystems. Token offers a credible alternative to card and wallet payments while helping merchants, PSPs and banks offer streamlined UX’s that deliver better payment experiences for customers. This investment adds to our growing FinTech portfolio that we’ve been steadily building, and we look forward to working with the Token team in 2021 and beyond.”