Open banking service provider Yolt Technology Services (YTS) has obtained a PSD2 licence from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which will allow it to carry out its payment activities using its own licence.

The firm can now independently provide payment initiation services (PIS) and account information services (AIS).

Earlier, it provided these services through its shareholder ING’s PSD2 licence.

YTS chief business officer Leon Muis called the latest development a “significant milestone”.

Commenting on the development, Muis noted: “From making the first-ever open banking API call for our client, the Yolt app, to surpassing one billion API calls in 2020, to now obtaining our own FCA licence, which will help us realise our ambition to bring the vast benefits of open banking to even more businesses.”

Moreover, YTS will also be able to extend its regulated services to businesses without a PSD2 licence as well.

Previously, under ING’s licence, Yolt has been offering PIS and AIS services to financial institutions and tech firms f across the UK and Europe.

The firm first made an open banking API call in January 2018. The firm currently has made more than one billion of such calls.

At present, more than 2.5 million bank customers in the UK now use open banking to connect their accounts to third parties. The figure is said to be one million higher compared to January last year.

Muis added: “Open banking has enormous potential to revolutionise the way both businesses and customers process and access financial information, ultimately delivering increased efficiency and richer insights for businesses, which is especially pertinent in a post-Covid and post-Brexit world.

“Our ambition is to drive this revolution across Europe.”