NAB Buys Banked to Speed Up Merchant Payments

National Australia Bank (NAB) acquired FinTech company Banked to help more businesses receive payments faster and at a lower cost.

Banked’s global technology platform uses a digital checkout and account-to-account payments to provide customers and businesses with a better experience and eliminate the need to use a credit or debit card, NAB said in a Thursday (May 14) press release.

Acquiring the platform strengthens NAB’s payments capability and supports its strategy to improve payments for businesses, according to the release.

NAB has used Banked’s technology since 2024 and has been a long-time investor in the company through its venture capital fund, NAB Ventures, the release said.

In January 2025, the companies partnered to enable pay by bank at checkout on Amazon’s Australia store, they said at the time in a press release.

The bank will operate Banked’s group of entities as wholly owned subsidiaries in the near term and will integrate Banked into its technology environment over the coming months, according to the Thursday press release.

NAB Group Executive, Transformation Shane Conway said in the release that Australia has been moving toward real-time, account-to-account payment options and that customers expect making payments to be fast, easy and reliable.

“Bringing Banked into NAB will continue to make it easier for customers to connect with us and manage payments, reconciliation and settlement in one place,” Conway said.

Conway told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in January 2024 that a growing number of businesses were seeking a real-time payment experience to know whether payments would be successful and to reduce the costs tied to moving money or receiving it.

“We see the most inertia with very large clients, who have deep integrations into legacy payments infrastructure,” Conway said

Banked CEO and co-founder Brad Goodall said in the Thursday press release that the acquisition will help the Banked platform scale and grow.

“The Banked team have worked hard to build a globally proven payments platform focused on the modern demands of developers and merchants of all sizes and scale,” Goodall said. “Having the backing of NAB will allow the platform to reach more customers.”