Lightyear partners with Truelayer for open banking payments

TrueLayer, a global open banking platform, the global open banking pioneer, has announced a new collaboration with investment platform Lightyear to deliver instant account funding through open banking payments.

With its drive to create a highly customer-centric investment platform, Lightyear has implemented instant account-to-account payments using TrueLayer’s Open Banking platform. Lightyear’s customers can now connect their primary bank account to the trading app for instant and secure funding using Payments Initiation. This improved process means customers can fund their accounts in seconds and make timely investment decisions.

Martin Sokk, CEO and Co-Founder of Lightyear: “Our goal is to make investing easy and approachable for everyone in Europe. A big part of that means removing all the traditional pain points that create a clunky customer journey. Collaborating with TrueLayer to offer seamless, instant payments improves our customer experience two-fold.  Our partnership will allow our customers to invest with confidence and we’re excited to be working with them.”

Creating a platform to satisfy customers 

Research by YouGov and TrueLayer has shown that payments directly influence investor satisfaction. More than half (57%) of current and prospective UK investors said they are more likely to trust a provider that offers instant payments. Further, around a fifth of these investors have missed out on an investment opportunity because funds didn’t appear in their accounts quickly enough, causing them to miss trading cycles. 

Jamie Morton, VP Verticals and UK, added: “As more consumers look to build portfolios, they are faced with numerous issues, including slow and inefficient payments that affect how much and how often they can deposit funds to invest and, ultimately, their satisfaction with a platform. However, innovators such as Lightyear have recognised that offering instant deposits creates an opportunity to develop a deeper and more positive relationship with their customers. It is creating clear water between itself and competitors with a compelling customer experience using open banking payments with TrueLayer.”

Improving operational efficiency 

The TrueLayer collaboration also improves Lightyear’s operational efficiency by removing costly transaction fees associated with cards and other payment methods such as PayPal. Higher payment acceptance and instant settlement also means less time spent managing failed payments that can ultimately lead to customer churn.

Founded in October 2020 by Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, both early Wise (formerly TransferWise) employees, Lightyear has offices in London, UK and Tallinn, Estonia. The company has raised $10 million to date and is backed by Mosaic Ventures, Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder of Wise and Sten Tamkivi, founder of Teleport and Metaplanet. Other investors include early Monzo backer and HM Treasury Special Envoy for Fintech Eileen Burbidge MBE, Robinhood UK’s Wander Rutgers, Ott Kaukver of checkout.com and Kaarel Kotkas, the founder of Veriff.