Trustly Group is a Swedish fintech company founded in 2008. Trustly is a payment method that allows customers to shop and pay from their bank account. Trustly provides its service through PayPal and TransferWise. To make a purchase, the customer is required to pass their banking credentials to Trustly, who performs the transaction on their behalf. Trustly accepts most credit and fraud risks, and the online store or consumer is guaranteed payment. In 2015, the company's payment services were offered by more than 800 online stores in Europe and payments of more than EUR 1.7 billion annually were processed. In 2019, Trustly reached more than 1 billion consumers through integration with 6000+ banks in 29 European countries and across the United States including. Trustly generated revenue in 2015 totaling EUR 20 million, up 85% from 2014, and, as of 2019, has 450 employees, most of whom work at the head office in Stockholm, with local offices also in Spain, Germany, Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, Finland and Malta.
History
The company was founded in 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden, and signed contracts that same year with the first Internet retailers. A first investment round was completed in 2009, and development of a second generation technical platform was launched. The company underwent a geographical expansion in 2010 after which its revenues grew by more than 200%. The first office outside of Sweden was opened in Malta and over one million transactions were processed the same year. The second generation platform was launched in 2011, and 25% of the company was sold to the investment group Alfvén & Didrikson. The company entered into a strategic partnership with Groupon in 2014 as well as PayPal and the Payout Express product was introduced. The 10 million transactions mark was reached and the risk capital firm Bridgepoint Capital invested €23 million to gain a minority stake. The arrival of Pay N Play epitomises Trustly’s mission to make online payments fast, simple and secure, transforming the way gamblers pay and play at online gambling from 2016. The Swedish FinTech company ranked #242 on the publication's first ‘FT 1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies’ list in 2017 based on its 3-year growth in revenue and staff. In March 2018, the private equity fundNordic Capital bought a majority stake, some 70 percent of the existing shares, in Trustly. Ahead of the deal the company reportedly got valued at roughly €700 million. In June 2019, Trustly merged with Silicon Valley-based online banking payments leader PayWithMyBank. The merger enables merchants with a global footprint to accept online banking payments from European and US consumers.
Criticism
Trustly faced criticism in 2013 from a competing bank when they used client information to log into the client's Internet banking. The bank claimed that Trustly had gained access not only to the information required for performing the payment but also to information related to, for example, the client's mutual funds and shareholdings and therefore, banking confidentiality had been compromised. The controversy has resurfaced in 2016 in Poland when PayPal switched to Trustly and a number of information security related websites and banks pointed out that the Trustly's practice is inconsistent with PayPal's own guidance to avoid revealing the credentials to third parties. Trustly defended itself by saying that the company sets out a clear agreement for what information the company may access for performing payments and establishing identity, in the same way as banks. Like the banks, Trustly is under the supervision of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority as a licensed Payment Institute.
