Swedish Trustly lands in Italy with account-to-account payments for claimants and payout

'Pay with the money you have': this could be the claim of the Swedish Trustly, as opposed to the 'buy now pay later' system of the other Swedish fintech, Klarna. "Our offer," emphasises Alessandro Biolchi, head of Italy at Trustly, "is inspired by an idea of the responsibility of finance that does not want to be based on increasing consumer debt, but aims at counting on the assets owned.

Founded in 2008, the Swedish fintech specialises in instant account-to-account payments, which bypass cards, digital wallets and any intermediary to move money directly from account to account, instantly. Having grown in the Nordic markets and the UK, it now aims to expand into the Mediterranean markets after the acquisition of France's SlimPay, which acted as a bridgehead for Southern Europe. Having grown to 9,000 merchant customers in more than 30 countries, with a transaction volume in line with its target of USD 100 billion by 2024, Trustly closed last year with a turnover of USD 265 million and an EBITDA that jumped from USD 33 million to USD 51 million.

As a pioneer in account-to-account payment solutions, Trustly leverages open banking to offer consumers and businesses a complete portfolio of payment and data services. Now it lands in Italy, where it already has a number of customers including Subito.it and UnipolMova, with its offering focused on recurring payments and merchant payouts to consumers based on its licence as a payment institution and the integration of banking APIs. Using account information service (Ais) technology to verify bank accounts, Trustly enables instant payouts from merchants - typically refunds for returns or damages - with digital verification of Iban and name, and Sepa direct debits - such as for subscriptions to information services, music, sports streaming or movies - through a fully digital mandate registration process. These solutions offer an alternative to traditional payment methods such as cards, which are becoming increasingly popular in retail, e-commerce and peer-to-peer transactions.

"Today, recurring payments are normally credit card-based. Trustly fills the gap of alternative debit systems by providing a solution that offers reduced costs, a better user experience, the instantaneousness of the transfer, and the security guaranteed by not having to run card data online," Biolchi explains. The fintech has integrated the APIs of the major Italian banks, with 95 per cent of the institutions covered. This allows most Italians to already connect to Trustly's network, opening up access to its new technology to millions of consumers across the country.

"Our customers are the merchants, over 9,000 worldwide, while we are customers of the banks: for Trustly, it is crucial to have a solid partnership with the banks in order to be able to improve the payment system, increasing its efficiency and reducing the risk of errors at the same time," Biolchi concludes.