Nordigen introduces 1000 bank integrations, acquires €2.1mn

Europe’s first free Open Banking API, providing links to large European banks, Nordigen, recently reported that they had not only managed to introduce 1000 bank integrations but also acquired €2.1mn euros as a part of their ‘freemium’ business model.  Launched on December 1st, 2020, this business model had only 300 European bank APIs at that time, but in a span of just half a year, they have successfully managed to introduce 700 bank integrations. Displaying massive potential and promise, Nordigen’s business model has managed to attract hefty investments from venture capitals as Inventure, Black Pearls VC, Highgoal Capital, Calchas Holding, ID4 Ventures, as well as angel investors like Henry Nilert, Riivo Anton, Gerri Kodres and Artis Kehris.

Since its inception in 2016, Nordigen has been an “industry leader in building solutions for turning raw transaction data into actionable insights.” Its business has been essentially built on banking data analytics and the offering of key data insights. In order to handle the influx of clients distancing themselves from excessively priced banking data services, Nordigen is also investing in improving its API platform. The Nordigen team observed that their services are used by banks, lenders and Fintechs across Europe and in fact, they have “already managed to more than quadruple our number of API users within four months, and the recent launch of our self-service platform should further speed up the increase.” As a licensed Accountant Information Service Provider (AISP) authorised in 31 European countries, Nordigen “ensures that there are no more upfront commitments, no hidden costs-just free access to PSD2 data.” 

In light of this development, CEO and co-founder of Nordigen, Rolands Mesters, remarked that “We integrated more banks in the last six months than our competitors managed in a whole year. Having less legacy technology to maintain means we can move a lot faster.” 

Advocating for Free Open Banking Data

Nordigen is a strong advocate for free open banking data. The company stated that “European banking data should be free not just for open banking platforms, but also for the developers that use the platforms to connect to bank accounts and build their applications. Open banking incumbents still charge developers for access to bank APIs. Instead of making banking more accessible, they’re taxing access to data that’s free under European banking laws (PSD2). We don’t think it’s fair.”

Futility of Screen-Scraping 

Nordigen also voices concerns on the futility of screen-scraping and reverse engineering technology for connecting European banks. The company is “ committed to focusing solely on open API’s created by banks.” Mesters noted that it is high time to “wipe out” screen scraping from Europe, given the fact that it’s an excessively costly and hacky process. He further observed that banks had created impressive API’s to “ let people migrate their account information securely and without friction. Nordigen allows these developers to connect to these bank APIs for free.”

The Prospect for Better Customer Experience

Nordigen also reported that the expansion of open banking would “allow fintech’s to access user data and build better customer experiences” since credit cards and various lending applications have “a crucial need for reliable data analysis and insights.” In the light of this, Partner at Black Pearls VC, Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, commented that “establishing trust between the growing number of online transactions is a significant pain point for numerous industries. Nordigen’s experienced team and the world’s first free open banking data hub convinced us to support the company in this round. Access to banking data is becoming a commodity, and Nordigen is creating the next valuable layer on top by turning fragmented financial data into usable information for various types of businesses.”