Turnkey open banking platform provider, Token, today announces its official authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to deliver payment initiation and account information services, under the terms of PSD2.

Via its universal open API banking platform, Token enables banks, merchants and other third-party providers (TPPs) to connect to any bank in the EU for payments and account information requests, thereby solving the integration pain being felt across the industry caused by multiple, proprietary bank APIs.

“Token is the shortest, fastest and least expensive path for banks, merchants and other financial service providers to become PSD2 compliant and to expand into open banking-based payments and data aggregation services,” comments Marten Nelson, co-founder, Token. “From May 1^st, all transacting businesses can connect to Token and accelerate their growth in payments and data by leveraging open banking.”

“The power of PSD2 and open banking lies in promoting customer-centricity,” continues Nelson. “In the anticipation of a richer and more convenient user experience, account holders can permit a merchant, a bank or another service provider to access their account data and initiate payments. Unless that business can offer this facility to all its customers, however, the proposition falls flat; only a percentage can take advantage. That’s why Token enables full interoperability between banks, merchants, and service providers via a single standardised open banking platform. All parties can connect immediately, securely and at a lower cost than before.”

The FCA license, which permits Token to connect UK customers to its platform, is another step towards Token’s goal of becoming the de-facto open banking standard for payment and data transactions. With the UK license granted, Token now benefits from a ‘license passporting’ process that enables it to establish similar domestic authorisations in neighbouring EU countries much faster than before.

“Token’s ecosystem enablement begins with connecting banks, merchants and consumers across the EU together via an easy to integrate, low cost and secure platform,” adds Nelson. “Crucially, however, we’re also creating a platform that provides a great environment for third party developers. These are the businesses that will make open banking really fly, when they create all the awesome payment and aggregation apps and services that end-users want.”

Token is seeing demand from a range of industries and is already actively engaged with customers to help them capitalise on open banking through a variety of different use cases. Banks, merchants and developers interested in accessing any bank via a single API should contact Token at https://token.io/contact.