Swedish fintech Tink is selling all to Visa for US$2.2 billion

Only months after the failure of a similar deal with American open banking platform Plaid, Visa Inc has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire European counterpart Tink for 1.8 billion euros (US$2.2 billion).

Tink, a Sweden-based open banking firm that began operation in 2012, allows lenders to seamlessly share and access customer information. The platform is currently home to 3,400 lenders and financial institutions, including 250 million customers in Europe.

Visa was forced to cancel a similar deal with Tink’s US rival Plaid after the U.S. government filed a lawsuit to block the transaction citing antitrust reasons. The deal, if completed, would have been priced at US$5.3 billion.

Open banking regulations within the EU permit the sharing of customer data between their primary lenders and other approved third-party institutions, as a way of maintaining competitiveness in the market.

Analysts and experts in the industry warn that this deal may face the same fate as the first, as the size and reach of Tink within the region may call for similar concerns and scrutiny by the authorities and regulators.