Cuscal Limited, which claims to be one of Australia’s largest independent providers of payments, banking, and regulated data and Basiq Pty Ltd, a Consumer Data Right (CDR) platform that provides data services to banks, Fintechs, and start-ups, have entered into a binding agreement under which Cuscal will “acquire a controlling interest in Basiq, subject to customary conditions.”
This acquisition brings positive news “to the recent investment downturn and provides hope for local homegrown start-ups.”
With the development of the 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 CEO and Founder, Damir Ćuća says they “needed to have the pathway to develop strong payment capabilities.”
Damir stated:
“To provide a complete platform, it was inevitable that Basiq would need to enhance its payment services. Cuscal is behind most of the innovative payment services in Australia and was 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,”
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.”
Craig Kennedy, Cuscal’s Managing Director, says he is 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 and as it has so far and will be encouraged to use the capabilities of Cuscal to provide innovative solutions to the market.”
Craig added:
“With the acquisition of Basiq, we will be able to add the new data capabilities that will enable them to enhance the delivery of their current services.”
As noted by Basiq, its vision is to make finance easy.
They see “a world where consumers are empowered 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.”