Payment service provider Cuscal has agreed to acquire a controlling interest in Australia-based Open Banking platform Basiq . With the development of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) by the Department of Treasury, the opportunities to use more reliable means to access data via Open Banking have enabled Basiq to continue to grow in the Australian market.

Basiq's mission is to provide fintechs and institutions with the services they need to compete and ultimately offer more value to their end consumers. As the CDR market matures, the range of solutions and financial applications being deployed has significantly shifted beyond simple data usage to include driving payments using intelligent data. Basiq’s officials stated that to provide a complete platform, it was inevitable that Basiq would need to enhance its payment services.

Cuscal is behind some of the innovative payment services in Australia and was one of the first to launch PayTo capability to the market, making it possible to use the new payment services that provide real-time account-to-account payments. Facilitating the growth of fintechs With Cuscal on board, Basiq will be able to create a one-stop-shop for fintechs to give them all the tools they need to accelerate the development of their application and deliver value to their end consumers. The benefit for Cuscal is also clear, supporting many credit unions, mutuals, and banks enabling Cuscal to provide its clients with the data services required to adopt Open Banking capability that will help them to better understand their customers and provide more engaging and relevant services.

Representatives from Cuscal said they are impressed with Basiq's ability to execute and present complex services such as data in a simple and developer-friendly way. Basiq has taken the SaaS playbook to heart, ensuring that their customers have the services they need to plug and play and help launch their apps to market with relative ease. Basiq will continue to function independently, as it has so far, and will be encouraged to use the capabilities of Cuscal to provide innovative solutions to the market.

Cuscal’s officials added that with the acquisition of Basiq, they will be able to add the new data capabilities that will enable them to enhance the delivery of their current services. What does Basiq do? Basiq’s vision is to make finance easy. They see a world where consumers are enabled to make smarter financial decisions and can engage with their finances in new and unique ways.

Basiq enables this by providing an Open Finance API platform for businesses to build innovative financial solutions. The platform facilitates the relationship between fintechs and consumers by enabling access to consented financial data and executing smart data-driven payments. .