London Fintech TrueLayer Raises $27M to Expand Pay by Bank in Europe

TrueLayer, the London-based fintech focused on open banking payments, has raised $27 million in a new funding round led by Italy's CDP Venture Capital as it expands its Pay by Bank network and strengthens its presence in Milan.

The investment brings together new and existing investors and comes as TrueLayer positions account-to-account payments as an alternative to traditional card networks. The company says more than 30 million consumers across 22 countries now use its Pay by Bank network.

Founded in London in 2016 by Luca Martinetti and Francesco Simoneschi, who became friends while attending school in Rome, TrueLayer has grown into one of Europe's better-known open banking payment infrastructure companies.

Simoneschi serves as co-founder and CEO.

Building European payment infrastructure

TrueLayer's core product allows consumers to pay directly from their bank accounts rather than using a traditional debit or credit card.

The company uses Europe's open banking infrastructure to enable these payments, which it says can be processed instantly and securely.

The broader ambition is to create payment infrastructure that is less dependent on the large US-based card networks.

For TrueLayer, Italy has become an increasingly important part of that strategy.

Around 70 TrueLayer employees are based in Italy, representing roughly a quarter of the company's workforce. Milan is one of its main engineering hubs, and the company expects to continue hiring there through 2027.

The latest investment from CDP Venture Capital adds an important Italian institutional investor to that expansion.

Why CDP Venture Capital is investing

CDP Venture Capital is owned 70% by CDP Equity and 30% by Invitalia. According to the funding announcement, it manages 15 funds with more than €4.9 billion in assets.

Mario Branciforti, who heads the firm's Large Ventures fund, said the investment reflects a broader effort to support European payment infrastructure and Italian technology talent.

For TrueLayer, the Milan engineering operation is more than a local office. The company sees it as a key technology hub for building its European payments infrastructure.

That makes the $27 million round both a financing event and a signal of the company's growing commitment to Italy.

Pay by Bank gains momentum

TrueLayer is raising the latest capital as open banking payments continue to expand.

In the UK, Open Banking Limited reported that payments across the country's nine largest banks passed 1 billion in June 2026. Monthly payments exceeded 40 million for the first time in May, while annual payment volume increased 45% in the year to July 2026.

These numbers point to growing consumer and business adoption of account-to-account payments.

At the same time, the European payments market remains heavily dominated by card networks. Payments Industry Intelligence reported that Visa and Mastercard handled more than €7 trillion of European transactions in 2023 and represented 95% of UK card transactions.

TrueLayer is betting that open banking can take a larger share of those transactions.

The company says its Pay by Bank network now reaches more than 30 million consumers across 22 countries.

Competition is building

TrueLayer is not the only fintech attempting to build an alternative payment layer around open banking.

Token.io, another European open banking payments company, raised a $40 million Series C in 2022 and later received a strategic investment from HSBC.

Volt raised $60 million in a Series B led by IVP in 2023, with participation from EQT Ventures, Augmentum Fintech, Fuel Ventures and CommerzVentures.

Other companies including Nopan and Banked are also targeting account-to-account payments and alternatives to conventional card payments.

The competition is therefore shifting from proving that open banking payments can work to building networks large enough to become meaningful alternatives to established payment infrastructure.

TrueLayer is expanding beyond payments

TrueLayer has also been using acquisitions and strategic investments to broaden its offering.

The company completed its acquisition of Swedish paytech Zimpler in March. In May, it announced the acquisition of Dutch buy now, pay later provider in3, adding consumer credit capabilities to its Pay by Bank platform.

The company also received an undisclosed strategic investment from eBay Ventures in February, as eBay added Pay by Bank to its UK checkout.

TrueLayer lists companies such as Ryanair and Just Eat among its customers, while Amazon and eBay have also been identified as recent adopters of its Pay by Bank technology.

These relationships give TrueLayer exposure to large consumer platforms where payment infrastructure can operate at significant transaction volumes.

A smaller round after a major funding history

The new $27 million investment comes after several years of substantial fundraising.

TrueLayer had previously raised hundreds of millions of dollars and reached unicorn status in 2021.

However, the company's valuation later came under pressure. A $50 million Series E extension in October 2024, led by Northzone with participation from Stripe, Temasek, Tencent and Tiger Global, reportedly valued TrueLayer at around $700 million.

The latest round is considerably smaller than that previous extension.

The company's revenue also grew from £12.4 million in 2023 to £20.3 million in 2024, according to reporting cited in the announcement.

That makes the next phase particularly important for TrueLayer.

The company now needs to translate a growing Pay by Bank network, large enterprise customers and increasing open banking adoption into sustained commercial growth.

The next test for European Pay by Bank

The $27 million investment gives TrueLayer additional capital to expand its Milan engineering operation and continue developing its European payment network.

But the larger question goes beyond TrueLayer.

If Pay by Bank continues gaining adoption across Europe, the region could gradually reduce its dependence on traditional card-based payment infrastructure.

The latest investment from an Italian public venture capital institution suggests that European payment sovereignty is becoming an increasingly important investment theme.

For TrueLayer, the challenge now is to prove that its network can scale from a promising open banking alternative into a major part of Europe's everyday payment infrastructure.