UK Banking Platform Cheddar Acquires Upside Saving

Bank transfer platform Cheddar has acquired open banking technology firm Upside Saving, Business Cloud reported Tuesday (March 1).

Cheddar, based in London, provides a free bank account-enabled payments platform, and said it ends inefficiencies in the payment chain for consumers and small businesses.

Upside, meanwhile, offers a marketing platform that connects retail brands and consumers by offering personalized cashback. Cheddar says it will use Upside’s technology to bolster the payments process for consumers.

“We believe this will add substantial value for our customers whilst also complementing our other services and operations,” said Tariq Zaid, Cheddar CEO and founder.

“We look forward to exploring these new open banking opportunities to enhance our customer offering. Consumer desires are at the heart of what Cheddar hopes to achieve, and because of this we always want to stay at the forefront of innovation to ensure we’re offering our customers the very best in digital finance services,” Zaid said.

Read more: UK’s Open Banking Chief Calls on Regulators to Streamline, Accelerate the Technology

Last week, the leader of U.K.’s open banking organization called on regulators to speed up debut of the technology.

Speaking with news outlet City A.M., Charlotte Crosswell, chair of the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), said simplifying regulations should be a priority.

“It’s not just about open banking now, it’s really becoming about where this technology sits and where its natural home is,” Crosswell said. “We have got to work out who’s going to take it forward, and how many regulators are going to be involved and who’s going to set the policy going forward.”

OBIE was established by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority to deliver the application programming interfaces, data and security infrastructures that allow developers to harness technology.

Introduced in 2018, open banking promises to free data sharing in banking and has been championed by FinTechs that say it is crucial to promote innovation in financial services. It is designed to share bank and credit card transaction data with third parties and make for easier bank-to-bank payments.