Equals Group to Introduce A2A Payments After Roqqett Acquisition

Equals Group is set to acquire Roqqet in a deal subject to regulatory approval.

In a press release announcing the acquisition Monday (Nov. 28), the U.K.-based FinTech Equals said the purchase of the open banking payments firm will enable it to offer its merchant customers the ability to accept account-to-account (A2A) payments. It added that Roqqett’s data capabilities will allow Equals to make machine-learning-informed decisions on risk management for business-to-business (B2B) customers using its platform.

The deal valued at £2.25 million ($2.69 million) subject to regulatory approval by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

“The ability to provide our corporate customers with an alternative route to acquire payments from their B2B or B2C customers is the last piece of the jigsaw in terms of Equals participation in the full payment lifecycle,” Ian Strafford-Taylor, CEO of Equals commented.

Glenn Smith, CEO of Roqqett, added, “Roqqett has developed a unique checkout experience for the rapidly growing market in open banking payments. This offering is enhanced with the addition of Equal’s capabilities in IBANs and their membership of the Faster Payments Scheme.  The team at Roqqett is looking forward to working with Equals to maximize the potential for both platforms arising from this acquisition.”

As payment service providers (PSPs) look to incorporate A2A payments into their propositions, acquiring open banking specialist businesses is one option. Strategic partnerships are another.

For example, Computop recently enabled A2A payments for its U.K. and EU merchants through a linkup with Token.

Even PSPs that already offer A2A payments can benefit from the right partnership, as is the case with Worldline, which extended the scope of its own open banking offering by teaming up with Neonomics.

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