Secure Trust Bank partners Mastercard for open banking payments

Open Banking enables consumers to access, use and benefit from their financial data and initiate payments between any of their bank accounts. With the express consent of Secure Trust Bank customers, Mastercard’s open banking technology enables seamless and fast account-to-account payments. This offers customers a new and convenient way to make payments for consumer loans using Secure Trust Bank’s Easy Bank Transfer payment option.

Jim Wadsworth, Senior Vice President, Open Banking, Mastercard, said: “At Mastercard, we are passionate about technological advances that give consumers greater choice and convenience in paying, accessing and managing their finances with open banking. This partnership offers customers the ability to repay their retail financing directly from any bank account of their choice, securely, quickly and with the least amount of hassle.”

Secure Trust Bank, an award-winning UK retail bank headquartered in Solihull, provides savings accounts and credit services to over 1 million customers. The Consumer Finance division offers point-of-purchase financing through its V12 Retail Finance business in partnership with national brands such as Watches of Switzerland, Beaverbrooks, DFS and Sofology to help customers fulfill their ambitions to buy what you want, when you want.

Chris Higham, Head of Payments and Cards at Secure Trust Bank, says: “Our vision is to become the UK’s most trusted specialist lender and partnering with a trusted name like Mastercard helps us make innovation safe for our customers. And it was important for us to choose a partner who has already implemented Open Banking in the UK with successful financial services use cases.”

Chris goes on to explain the impact of the partnership to date: “With Mastercard’s open banking platform, we are now able to offer our customers more choice when it comes to repaying retail financing. Previously, customers who wanted to send a payment to their account had to log into their online bank and set up a new payee before making a payment, writing down the reference number and entering it manually – which was a slow process for them and resulted in some tuning errors for us.”

Mastercard has a strong track record of leading successful open banking collaborations with European financial institutions and today supports more than 50 banks across Europe including Tesco, Lloyds, Danske Bank, DNB, Santander Consumer Bank and Lunar. In Europe, Mastercard now enables Open Banking Access in 18 markets, enabling banks, payment service providers and fintechs to offer their customers innovative data and payment services that make life easier.

Chris Higham concluded: “This is just the beginning of our Open Banking journey and we look to expand our partnership with Mastercard into new business areas in the near future.”