KeyBank Buys B2B Digital Banking Platform XUP

Cleveland-based financial service company KeyBank National Association has purchased B2B digital banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform XUP Payments, according to a Monday (Nov. 22) press release. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

KeyBank’s acquisition of XUP is the company’s next step in providing digital innovation at scale, according to the announcement. It follows a collaborative effort between the two companies, which helped convert KeyBank’s merchant payments capabilities, increasing its quarterly volume growth.

XUP’s technology is built with various integrations to provide banks with a unified payments experience. In addition, the platform enables seamless, intuitive client onboarding and servicing experiences. KeyBank will take advantage of the acquisition to improve user experience across commercial products and more broadly expand the company’s embedded banking strategy.

“We’ve long embraced the software innovation that’s sweeping through the financial services industry, and the acquisition of XUP allows us to continue to be a leader in this space,” said Ken Gavrity, Head of Enterprise Payments & Analytics for KeyBank. “XUP’s highly experienced team has accelerated us on the journey to build connectivity across our systems, our partners and our customers, to make it easy to do business with Key.”

As part of its plan to improve data analytics capabilities, in 2019, KeyBank acquired Laurel Road, an online lending solutions provider. As part of its modernization strategy, Laurel Road incorporated voice of customer (VoC) insights, according to PYMNTS.

See also: Voice Of Customer Solutions Use Clients’ Own Words To Drive Personalized Customer Experiences

Modernizing commercial payments for the digital era will be faster and streamlined with measurable metrics that shows returns on investments and better cash flow metrics, a panel of payments professionals told PYMNTS in October.

Gavrity, one of the panelists, said the “inflection point” several years ago, when investors contributed more readily to FinTechs, helped bring banks more fully into the fold.

Read more: Re-imagining Business Payments Could Give Buyers/Suppliers a ‘Unified Experience,’ Payment Experts Say