London-based open banking startup Yapily raises $5.4 million

The UK's enterprise fintech startup Yapily has landed $5.4 million in a funding round led by LocalGlobe and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from Taavet Hinrikus of TransferWise, Ott Kaukver of Twilio, and Roberto Nicastro, formerly of UniCredit.

Yapily's platform allows companies of all sizes to connect with retail banks using their open API required by the open banking regulations. The startup is currently connected via API to 35 banks in Europe and plans to increase this number to 536 by the end of this year.

The funding comes a few months before the deadline for all banks in the EU to have open API in place, which is currently set on September 14 by the Revised payment service directive, or PSD2. The idea here is that all bank customers should be able to share their financial data with third parties if they want to do so. About 5,000 European banks will have to comply with the directive.