“Can a proprietary open-banking Pay by Bank network displace card rails for high-volume merchants globally by combining instant A2A payments, data-driven KYC, and smart routing — at lower cost than Visa/Mastercard?”
Founded in 2008 as a European bank-transfer payment alternative to cards, Trustly built a proprietary open banking stack connecting to thousands of banks across Europe. The company expanded into the US market and achieved unicorn status in 2020 via a BlackRock-backed round. It has since evolved from a pure-play payment initiation company into a broader Pay by Bank network offering payouts, open-banking data/KYC (Trustly ID), and account information services — growing through acquisitions of Ecospend (UK) and SlimPay (EU) to deepen its AIS/PIS licensing footprint. In 2023 it processed $58 billion in transactions with 9,000+ merchant clients globally.
Trustly discloses Cross River Bank as its banking provider, with Cross River Bank, N.A. as its sponsor bank, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Trustly does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Cross River Bank, N.A..
Trustly processes payments through Trustly Pay by Bank (self-operated), Trustly Payout (self-operated), Trustly Recurring Payments (self-operated), Trustly Direct Debit (self-operated), SlimPay PIS (self-operated) and Ecospend PIS (self-operated).
Trustly uses Trustly Payout (self-operated) for FX and cross-border payouts.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 4 layers in Trustly's stack: Payments / PSP (Trustly Pay by Bank (self-operated), Trustly Payout (self-operated), Trustly Recurring Payments (self-operated), Trustly Direct Debit (self-operated) and 2 others); Banking / BaaS (Cross River Bank); Sponsor bank (Cross River Bank, N.A.); FX & payouts (Trustly Payout (self-operated)).
Trustly was founded by Carl Wilson, Joel Jakobsson and Lukas Gratte and is founded in 2008, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.
Trustly has raised undisclosed in total (latest round: Debt - Acquisition (per PitchBook); valuation: $1B+ (June 2020 per TechCrunch)).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Trustly and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.