Tag: banked

Banked losses narrow but still waiting for revenues to arrive

Geoffrey Barraclough1 Comment

Banked, one of a number of loss-making London-based open banking payments companies, has published its accounts for the year to 31 December 2024. They show revenue beginning to arrive (albeit painfully slowly), a narrower (although still rather large) operating loss, and continuing dependence on external finance as the company pursues its global ambitions.

Bar chart illustrating the revenue and operating loss of Banked from 2022 to 2024, showing a gradual increase in revenue and a decrease in operating loss.

Revenues rose to £717k (2023: £53k) as Banked began to generate some income from its partnerships. The operating loss narrowed to £15.1m (2023: £23.5m) with employee costs cut to £11.4m (2023: £15.4m). Staff numbers fell from 117 to 86. Despite the layoffs, management stresses it has “retained its product and commercial presence across all key markets.”

2024 was, in the words of the directors, “a pivotal year in strengthening Banked’s role as a trusted, strategic partner to tier-one financial institutions.”

In the US, FIS selected Banked to provide Pay by Bank in sectors such as insurance, utilities and higher education.

In the UK, Visa announced Banked as a partner for its new Visa A2A service, intended to improve consumer protection and user experience for account-to-account payments. And in April 2025, Banked announced the acquisition of VibePay, the UK consumer payments app offering cashback and rewards. The deal, subject to FCA approval, will add a consumer-facing element to Banked’s platform and bring Candy Ventures and VibePay founder Luke Massie onto the board.

In Australia, Banked acquired Waave, a local Pay by Bank player, to broaden its technological and commercial footprint.

The company says investment in research and development remains a priority, with work continuing on “payment routing, authentication, settlement, [and] support” and exploration of “new technology models to drive sustainable product innovation.”

To date, Banked has raised around £55m from NAB, Citibank and Raypd amongst others including an additional £14m in 2024. Most of the capital has now been spent, underlining how dependent Banked remains on external finance while waiting for open banking payments to scale.

For now, Banked remains a company with modest revenues, heavy losses, and an expanding global footprint. The next test will be whether acquisitions such as Waave and VibePay, and partnerships with FIS and Visa, can deliver the volumes required to justify the continuing inflow of investor capital. 

New finance needed as Banked expands in US and Australia

Geoffrey Barraclough1 Comment

Banked, one of a number of well-funded open banking start-ups, is yet to generate meaningful revenues, according to financial statements deposited at UK Companies House.

For the 13 months to December 2022, Banked booked just £45K revenues as sales from a series of high profile partnerships had yet to materialise. The company recorded an operating loss of £14.8m taking its accumulated deficit to £22.5m at year end and says it will need to raise new money this year.

Banked was founded by Brad Goodall and Neil Ambler who worked together at 10x, a London based core banking provider. The duo have proved astute fundraisers. Banked is well financed, having received £36.4m in capital from a set of high-profile investors including three leading banks – Bank of America, Citi and NAB – as well as Rapyd, the acquirer/PSP. 

This is a crowded market. Banked competes with a large field including Truelayer, Tink, Token, Trustly, Volt and Yapily.  These firms simplify the process for merchants to incorporate open banking as a payment option on their checkout pages by aggregating connections to thousands of banks. 

Merchants want open banking acceptance to be bundled with the payment service they buy today from their bank, acquirer or PSP. They don’t want to buy a separate product which they have to integrate themselves. Consequently, open banking specialists, like Banked, tend to focus on a white label distribution model. Banked’s strategy of taking investment from potential partners could be a smart move.

Bank of America has already incorporated Banked’s product into the eCommerce checkout offered by its merchant services division. NAB is expected to use Banked technology to offer its merchants PayTo, an Australian equivalent of open banking. Banked also has partnerships with payment orchestrators including Primer, Gr4vy and Apexx which will further extend its reach.

Simply getting Banked’s “pay by bank” button on checkout pages won’t guarantee commercial success. Banked needs shoppers to choose its button in preference to paying with cards, Paypal or any other method they use today. Changing consumer payment behaviour is a formidable challenge and Banked will be reliant on its partners, notably the banks, to educate and incentivise shoppers to start using open banking payments.

To support its expansion plans, Banked has established subsidiaries in Lithuania, Australia and the USA. Goodall has relocated to California to lead Banked’s foray into the US market.

The Lithuanian subsidiary, Pay by B, is a payment institution giving passported access to merchants across the EEA. Pay by B lost £0.287m in 2022 leading management to recognise an impairment loss  of £0.47m.

Management reports investment continuing into 2023 although “additional equity funding is being sought… to further support growth.” Management says it hopes to close this new fundraising in Q3.