Social investment platform eToro has partnered with OpenPayd, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure provider, to help power eToro Money accounts across Europe, offering an almost-instant payments experience, a press release said Monday (Sept. 26).
eToro Money connects with an existing eToro account, letting users manage funds in one place for a simpler payment experience. It will include making instant withdrawals and deposits.
The OpenPayd partnership lets eToro issue euro virtual international bank account numbers (IBAN) for every customer and access to SEPA Instant rails for the first time. OpenPayd’s API-based solution will allow eToro to speed up reconciliations and end human error.
“This partnership is an example of embedded finance in action; it’s a significant evolution in how we build innovative financial services,” says Kreeson Thathiah, director of payments at eToro. “With every customer receiving their own virtual IBAN and access to the real-time European payment rails, SEPA Instant, we can ensure that funds are moving when, how and to whom they’re supposed to.”
Meanwhile, Iana Dimitrova, OpenPayd CEO, said the company was making the partnership because it believes “that embedding financial services in this way powers business growth, enabling any company to build new products, streamline operations and manage payments globally. This is what the future of financial services looks like.”
eToro and SPAC FinTech Acquisition Corp. V recently decided to call off their planned merger, which would’ve let them go public together, PYMNTS wrote in July.
Read more: eToro, FinTech V Cancel SPAC Merger Deal
The merger was initially announced in March 2021, but it did not meet the closing conditions within the time frame agreed on.
eToro, when the merger was announced, said it was anticipating a valuation of $10.4 billion, with FinTech V Chairman Betsy Cohen saying eToro was a good pick because it had success as an online social trading platform outside the U.S. and had multiple income streams.
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