Token.io had a standout year in 2023, characterised by a number of significant milestones and achievements. From enhancing our connectivity and product capabilities, to enabling our customers’ success and making strides in sustainability and diversity initiatives, we've made a tangible impact. And our efforts have not gone unnoticed. Join us as we delve into the accomplishments and accolades that shaped this defining year.
Token.io had a standout year in 2023, characterised by a number of significant milestones and achievements. From enhancing our connectivity and product capabilities, to enabling our customers’ success and making strides in sustainability and diversity initiatives, we've made a tangible impact. And our efforts have not gone unnoticed. Join us as we delve into the accomplishments and accolades that shaped this defining year.
Industry-leading infrastructure
Token.io is an account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure provide that leverages open banking to provide payment companies with the simplest and fastest way to grow their market share by launching their own Pay by Bank capabilities.
2023 was the year Token.io emerged as the undisputed market leader in open banking connectivity as we expanded our coverage network from 14 to 20 countries, with the addition of six new markets: Italy, Romania, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
We also raised the bar for connectivity breadth and depth, covering a minimum of 80% of bank accounts for payment and data access in each of our supported markets — the highest of any provider — and driving average success rates of up to 95% in our top markets.
At Token.io, we build and maintain every single one of our connections in-house to drive the ultimate performance and control. Yet, we don't simply have direct connections to banks — we have direct relationships with banks. This year, we worked continuously and collaboratively with banks to refine our connections and ensure their optimal performance for our customers.
The broader financial services ecosystem is not just made up of the larger financial institutions, but also the challenger banks of tomorrow, so we’ll continue to monitor and add emerging market entrants to maintain our best-in-class connectivity offering in 2024 and beyond.
In addition to leading the market for connectivity, this year we also developed new capabilities that expand the use cases for A2A payments, and enable our customers to quickly and easily launch and manage their own Pay by Bank solutions.
Our new Virtual Accounts achieve both of these aims, unlocking the full potential of Pay by Bank for ecommerce and enabling payment providers to go to market as fast as possible. By delivering real-time notification of settlement, Token.io’s Virtual Accounts give merchants the necessary confidence to fulfill orders at today’s lightning speed of commerce, while also supporting instant refund and payout capabilities.
Cutting-edge connectivity and features like Virtual Accounts enable our customers to maximise acceptance and move fast. Next, we’re making further advancements to help our customers grow and drive adoption of their Pay by Bank solutions. These include conversion-boosting enhancements to the payment authentication flows, data-driven optimisation to continuously improve success rates, and much more. To continue to support the wider adoption of open banking-enabled payments across Europe, we’ve also recently joined the industry-led Accept My IBAN coalition.
Recognised as the market leader
As we strive to lead at the forefront of our industry, Token.io earned several accolades this year, which served as a humbling acknowledgment of the hard work and dedication of our team.
At the outset of 2023, Token.io was named one of Accel’s Fintech 100 EMEA: Accel’s pick of the hottest fintech companies set to become the next generation of category leaders. This set the scene for a year in which Token.io was consistently recognised as the market leading A2A payment infrastructure provider in the UK and Europe.
For the second consecutive year, Token.io was named the Juniper Research Open Banking Innovation Platinum Award winner, which recognises companies at the forefront of their field, with the potential to disrupt their ecosystems and provide significant benefits to their target audiences.
This year, FinTech Magazine named Token.io one of the top ten open banking platform providers in fintech for 2023, and Token.io was also recognised in the Gartner® HypeCycle™ for Digital Banking Transformation. We went on to be named Best Open Banking Solution by the Banking Tech Awards, in acknowledgement of our industry-leading connectivity, innovative solutions, like Virtual Accounts. Moreover, the Europe Fintech Awards identified Token.io’s exceptional strategy, innovative infrastructure and customer focus as it awarded Token.io the title of Paytech of the Year for “setting the standards for this exciting area of fintech.”
In July, together with Volt and Yapily, Token.io was bestowed with the PayTech for Good Award for our joint #StandWithUkraine donation initiative, which leveraged open banking to ensure 100% of donations received were directed to their intended recipients.
And last, but certainly not least, a testament to the power of collaboration: in November, Token.io and HSBC UK were conferred the Best Bank & Fintech Partnership award at the 2023 Banking Tech Awards. Through our partnership, Token.io and HSBC UK are transforming payments in the online retail space with HSBC Open Payments, which challenges traditional payment acceptance methods by combining the speed and efficiency of card payments with the simplicity of a bank transfer. As our CEO Todd Clyde commented: “This award recognises over three years of industry-leading collaboration with HSBC UK, and is an incredible result for an incredible partnership.”
Open banking powered account-to-account payments are driving significant benefits for our partners and their underlying customers, and we’re honoured to see this recognised.
Making A2A payments mainstream
Token.io envisions a future where account-to-account (A2A) payments become a mainstream payment method on a global scale. As the leading A2A payments infrastructure provider in Europe, we’re proud to be working with a blue-chip base of customers to make this future a reality.
This year, we received overwhelming support and excitement at Money20/20 Europe, where Token.io CEO Todd Clyde and Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola jointly unveiled our collaboration to extend the reach of A2A payments to more businesses and consumers worldwide. This was followed by the announcement of our partnership with EchoPay to deliver A2A payments to wholesale merchants, including Unitas Wholesale, across the United Kingdom. We also teamed up with Total Processing to launch A2A payments for its European customers, with Travis Perkins as an early adopter, and announced our launch across Scandinavia with our partner, Paysafe, which has expanded its coverage with Token.io to offer consumers and merchants a frictionless service in Denmark.
In October, we were delighted to bring together our powerhouse community of customers at the world’s largest and most significant open banking and open finance event, Open Banking Expo, where our partners Global Payments and HSBC also joined us on stage to speak to their visions for the future of A2A payments.
And, throughout 2023, we were honoured to continue to support our many other incredible customers and partners, including Mastercard, BNP Paribas, Paysafe, Computop, Prommt, Trust Payments and Ecommpay.
Creating an impact beyond payments
In 2023, Token.io’s vision to be a global leader extended beyond payments.
For Women’s History Month 2023, we passed the mic to our all-star team of women in fintech to help us celebrate the achievements of individuals who identify as women, and to highlight where work is still needed to ensure gender equity across the fintech industry. This year, Token.io also reached several important milestones in on our continuous efforts to improve our organisations’ diversity and inclusivity, with women now represented in all of our business’ functions, and with a more even gender ratio than the UK fintech industry’s average.
With our remote-first and flexible work approach, Token.io has long been one of the companies leading the flexible working revolution. This year, we made it official, earning our flexible work accreditation from Flexa Careers, with an outstanding ‘FlexScore’ of 81%. Flexa’s certification process also captured what makes Token.io a special place to work and grow. This includes the fact that flexible working is deeply ingrained in our company culture (and role modeled by our leadership!) and that our mission resonates with our team, who are aligned and excited about our goals.
In addition to our commitment to creating a diverse, inclusive and flexible future of work — we’re also committed to making the future one we all want to live in. This year, we launched our Climate Commitment, joined the SME Climate Hub and United Nations’ Race to Zero Campaign, and pledged to aim to operate at net zero by 2030. Climate change is everybody’s business, and we believe payments have a role to play in climate action. We are doing our part to create a sustainable future, as we actively work to ensure instant bank payments become the greenest way to pay. We believe we can also contribute to a decarbonised economy beyond our own operations, and are also advocating for climate action by engaging our network of customers and partners.
2024: The year for account-to-account payments
According to Forrester analysts, “2024 will be the year for account-to-account payments,” and we couldn’t agree more. Here’s why.
Over the past six years, the ability to use open banking APIs to access real-time payment rails has enabled the creation of an account-to-account (A2A) payment network, which is now rapidly scaling across Europe. We believe this represents one of the biggest disruptions in how payment services are delivered, streamlined and consumed during our lifetimes.
This year, we observed the promising results of the exciting convergence of instant payments and open banking APIs in Brazil and India, where volumes of A2A payment solutions Pix and UPI (for which the overwhelming majority of transactions run on real time rails) now exceed those of cards in their respective markets. As the European Commission enacts proposed instant payment legislation into law by the end of 2023 we expect to see Europe begin to follow a similar trajectory, with A2A payments solidifying their place as a mainstream payment method as instant payments become commonplace.
In 2023, a record number of consumers experienced the benefits of instant bank payments first hand in the UK, where an average of 600,000 Britons (or about 1.5% of the adult UK population) tried open banking-enabled payments for the first time each month. To really put that figure in perspective, picture a sold-out O2 arena or. Then, multiply the size of that crowd by 30: That is how many Britons are trying ‘Pay by Bank’ each month.
Recently, the UK’s Future of Payments Review Report, the British Retail Consortium’s 2023 Payments Survey, and the European Central Bank’s revised retail payment strategy have all recognised the tremendous potential of A2A payment solutions to drive widespread benefits, as they called for increased competition in the payment landscape.
At Token.io, we believe CVRP (and the analogous capability in Europe, Dynamic Recurring Payments/DRP) hold the key to truly increasing competition in retail payments, and will enable A2A payments to pose an even more serious threat to traditional payment methods.
Commercial VRPs are a faster, more secure, convenient, and cost-effective alternative for one-click e-commerce and recurring payments. This new A2A payment capability will enable consumers to use their ‘account on file’ rather than their ‘card on file,’ paving the way for making payments as frictionless as possible across a wealth of use cases, which will accelerate consumer adoption.
The rollout of Commercial Variable Recurring Payment (CVRP) capabilities in the UK is therefore a key priority for Token.io next year, and will be a landmark development for the payments industry.
What’s next for Token.io?
As momentum behind A2A payment grows, payment service providers that are slow to adopt risk becoming irrelevant.
At Token.io, we remain focused on enabling payment companies to maximise acceptance and grow their market share by launching their own Pay by Bank solutions.
In addition to providing industry-leading infrastructure, we continue to work hand-in-hand with our partners to help them succeed in the new payments landscape, providing go-to-market consultation, sales training and collateral, ongoing education and advisory to support merchant and PSU adoption, and private beta opportunities for new markets and capabilities. As our industry continues to evolve in 2024, we’re committed to helping our customers evolve with it.
Full steam ahead
Looking back on 2023, it's clear that Token.io has become a leading force in the A2A payment space, pushing the boundaries in connectivity and capabilities, while working hand-in-hand with our customers to drive their success.
Moving into the new year, expect even more groundbreaking advancements and growth from Token.io as we solidify our place as the A2A payment infrastructure provider of choice for payments companies.