London-based Open Banking platform TrueLayer has partnered with investment platform Lightyear, which was founded by former Wise employees Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer.
The new collaboration will see Lightyear, which combines multi-currency accounts with access to global markets, deliver instant account-to-account payments using TrueLayer’s Open Banking platform.
This means that the investment platform’s customers can connect their primary bank account to the trading app for instant and secure funding using payments initiation.
Lightyear provides users with unlimited access to more than 1,000 global stocks and ETFs, with no trading fees, no account fees and no FX fees up to £3,000 per month and said that the partnership will also remove “costly” transaction fees associated with cards and other payment methods such as PayPal.
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.”
Lightyear, which was founded in October 2020 by Sokk and Aamer, both early employees at Wise (formerly TransferWise), 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.
Jamie Morton, VP verticals and UK at TrueLayer, 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.”
Earlier this week, TrueLayer announced the appointment of Rob Hale as its head of banking in Australia.
