LONDON, May 14, 2026 — National Australia Bank (NAB) has completed its acquisition of London-based fintech Banked, a move that unifies one of Australia's four major banks with a specialist account-to-account payments platform founded in 2018. The deal, confirmed on 14 May 2026, marks the culmination of a multi-year strategic relationship that began with NAB Ventures investing across three funding rounds in 2022, 2023, and 2024. NAB already held a minority stake and had been deploying Banked's Pay by Bank technology for its business customers since 2024. The acquisition aims to help NAB's commercial clients receive payments faster while cutting the processing costs associated with traditional card networks. As Business20Channel.tv's fintech coverage has tracked, the global shift toward real-time, account-to-account payments is accelerating — and this deal places a major Australian incumbent at the centre of that transition. Our open banking analysis contextualises why acquirer-banks are now buying, not building, payment orchestration capability. This analysis examines the strategic logic behind the acquisition, the competitive landscape it disrupts, and the implications for merchants, payment processors, and regulators across Australia, the UK, and beyond.

Executive Summary

• NAB acquired Banked, a London fintech founded in 2018 by Brad Goodall, to accelerate account-to-account payments in Australia and internationally.
• Banked's technology bypasses credit and debit card networks, enabling real-time settlement with lower processing fees for merchants.
• NAB Ventures had invested in Banked across 3 separate funding rounds — 2022, 2023, and 2024 — before converting its minority stake into full ownership.
• Banked's entities will continue operating as wholly owned subsidiaries of NAB in the short term, with integration planned over the coming months.
• The deal reflects intensifying competition in the global real-time payments market, where incumbents are racing to offer alternatives to card-based infrastructure.

Key Developments

From Investor to Acquirer: NAB's Three-Year Pathway

NAB's path to full ownership of Banked followed a deliberate, phased strategy. NAB Ventures, the bank's corporate venture arm, first participated in Banked's funding in 2022, returning for additional rounds in 2023 and 2024. That gave NAB a minority shareholding and — critically — operational familiarity. Since 2024, NAB has been integrating Banked's Pay by Bank platform into its own business payments offering, giving the bank a live proving ground before committing to full acquisition. Shane Conway, a senior NAB executive involved in the transaction, described the rationale in clear terms. "Bringing Banked into NAB will continue to make it easier for customers to connect with us and manage payments, reconciliation and settlement in one place," Conway stated in the acquisition announcement. He added: "Pay by Bank is part of a broader shift in Australia's payments landscape toward real-time, account-to-account options that sit alongside cards and digital wallets. Customers expect making payments to be fast, easy and reliable, and Banked helps us deliver that." — Shane Conway, NAB, TechFundingNews, May 2026.

What Banked Built: Pay by Bank and Payment Orchestration

Founded by Brad Goodall in 2018, Banked developed two core products: a Pay by Bank service that allows consumers to pay merchants directly from their bank accounts, and a payment orchestration layer that routes and manages those transactions. The technology removes credit and debit card networks from the payment chain, which typically charge merchants interchange fees of between 1.5% and 3% per transaction in many markets, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia's payments regulation reviews. Goodall confirmed his enthusiasm for the deal's scale potential. "The Banked team have worked hard to build a globally proven payments platform focused on the modern demands of developers and merchants of all sizes and scale. Having the backing of NAB will allow the platform to reach more customers," Goodall said. — Brad Goodall, Founder, Banked, TechFundingNews, May 2026. In the near term, Banked's legal entities will remain as wholly owned subsidiaries of NAB, with a full integration into NAB's broader technology environment planned over the coming months of 2026.

Market Context & Competitive Landscape

Global Account-to-Account Payments: A Crowded Field

Banked is not the only platform enabling Pay by Bank transactions. The competitive landscape includes several well-funded challengers and established players. European Central Bank data shows instant payment adoption across the eurozone grew by over 35% year-on-year in 2025. In the UK, Open Banking Limited reported that open banking payments surpassed 17.6 million transactions per month by late 2025. The table below benchmarks Banked against key competitors in the account-to-account payments space.

Source: Company disclosures and Business20Channel.tv research, May 2026. Backer information from publicly reported funding rounds.

NAB's acquisition of Banked gives it proprietary technology in a market where several competitors — notably GoCardless and Token.io — remain independent. GoCardless raised approximately $312 million across its funding history and pivoted into instant bank pay in 2023. Token.io, backed by BNP Paribas and SBI, focuses specifically on API-driven payment initiation for banks. Volt, a real-time payments aggregator, has expanded aggressively into Brazil and Europe. Banked's differentiation rests on its checkout-level orchestration and its now-direct connection to a top-4 Australian bank's infrastructure.

Limitations and Honest Assessment

However, Banked's acquisition by NAB also introduces potential constraints. Independent fintechs like GoCardless or Volt can serve any banking partner without conflict of interest; once embedded inside NAB, Banked's willingness — or ability — to serve competing banks may diminish. This is a structural tension common to bank-acquired fintechs. NAB has stated that Banked's entities will initially remain as subsidiaries, but long-term platform openness remains an open question for the market.

Industry Implications

Finance: Interchange Fee Pressure Intensifies

For the Australian financial services sector, this deal adds momentum to a broader Reserve Bank of Australia-backed push toward lower-cost payment rails. Australia's New Payments Platform (NPP), launched in 2018, already handles real-time transfers between banks. NAB's integration of Banked extends that capability to the merchant checkout, creating a direct competitor to Visa and Mastercard at the point of sale. Merchants paying card interchange fees — which the RBA has capped at 0.8% for credit cards — may now have a viable alternative at lower cost. Shane Conway's comments underscore this point: account-to-account options are designed to "sit alongside cards and digital wallets," which suggests NAB sees Pay by Bank as complementary rather than a full card replacement — at least for now.

Retail and E-Commerce: Checkout Experience

Banked's platform was built with a focus on digital checkout experiences, per the company's own positioning. For Australian retailers and e-commerce operators — a sector that processed an estimated A$63.4 billion in online transactions in 2025 according to Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting — integrating Pay by Bank into checkout flows could reduce cart abandonment if the experience proves faster and simpler than card entry. However, consumer adoption of non-card payment methods remains uneven; the RBA's 2025 Consumer Payments Survey showed cards still accounted for roughly 57% of consumer transaction value in Australia.

Regulatory and Government Context

This acquisition sits within a regulatory environment that is increasingly supportive of open banking. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has overseen open banking since 2018, while Australia's Consumer Data Right (CDR) framework — administered by the ACCC — extends open data principles to banking and is gradually expanding to other sectors. A bank-owned Pay by Bank solution like Banked could benefit from regulatory encouragement, but it also raises questions about whether an incumbent-owned platform can maintain the competitive neutrality that regulators envision for open banking ecosystems.

Business20Channel.tv Analysis

Why Banks Are Buying, Not Building

NAB's acquisition of Banked is instructive not just for what it says about payments, but for what it reveals about how major banks now approach technology development. The build-versus-buy calculus has shifted decisively toward acquisition for several reasons. First, Banked spent 8 years (2018–2026) building, testing, and refining its platform — a timeline that no incumbent's internal development team could match while simultaneously serving existing customers and meeting regulatory obligations. Second, NAB de-risked the acquisition through a three-phase venture investment strategy, spending 4 years (2022–2026) evaluating Banked's technology and team before committing to full ownership. This pattern — invest, deploy, acquire — is becoming a playbook for major financial institutions, and our fintech M&A coverage at Business20Channel.tv has documented similar approaches by JPMorgan Chase with its 2022 acquisition of Renovite and by Visa with its Tink purchase in 2022.

The Non-Obvious Insight: Settlement Speed as Competitive Moat

The headline framing of this deal is about lower costs — bypassing card networks to reduce interchange fees. But the more strategically significant element is settlement speed. Traditional card transactions settle in 1–3 business days. Account-to-account payments via Banked settle in real time. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — which constitute approximately 97% of Australian businesses according to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman — the difference between receiving funds in seconds versus days directly affects cash flow, working capital requirements, and ultimately business survival. NAB's Shane Conway explicitly referenced settlement and reconciliation as combined benefits. This is the non-obvious angle: NAB is not just acquiring a cheaper payment rail. It is acquiring a faster cash conversion cycle for its merchant clients, which could strengthen merchant banking relationships and reduce churn to competitor banks.

Cross-Border Implications

Banked is a London-founded company with a platform originally built on UK open banking rails. NAB is an Australian institution. This cross-border dimension raises interesting possibilities. If NAB maintains Banked's UK operations — which the subsidiary structure suggests it will, at least initially — it gains a foothold in the UK's mature open banking ecosystem. That could position NAB to serve Australian businesses expanding into UK and European markets, or to facilitate cross-border payment flows that bypass both card networks and correspondent banking chains. Brad Goodall's reference to a "globally proven payments platform" suggests international reach is part of the long-term vision. Our cross-border payments analysis explores why this capability is increasingly valued by commercial banking clients.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia payments data, company disclosures, and Business20Channel.tv estimates, May 2026. Figures marked * are estimates based on available market data and should be treated as indicative.

Why This Matters for Industry Stakeholders

For merchants, particularly those processing high volumes of digital transactions, this acquisition signals that Pay by Bank is moving from a niche alternative to a mainstream option backed by one of Australia's largest banks. Merchants already using NAB for business banking should expect integrated Pay by Bank options to appear in their checkout and reconciliation tools within months. The immediate practical benefit is reduced processing costs and faster access to funds.

For competing payment providers — including card networks such as Visa and Mastercard — the deal is a concrete data point confirming that major banks are actively investing in alternatives to card infrastructure. This does not mean cards will disappear. It does mean that card networks may face increasing pressure to reduce fees or add value to justify their position in the payment chain. For fintech founders, the acquisition validates the venture-to-acquisition pipeline. Brad Goodall and the Banked team built a platform that attracted strategic investment from NAB in 2022, operational deployment in 2024, and full acquisition in 2026. This 4-year pathway is a model for founders seeking exits through strategic partnerships rather than IPOs.

Forward Outlook

The most pressing question is execution. NAB has committed to integrating Banked into its broader technology environment over the coming months of 2026, but payments infrastructure integrations are notoriously complex. If NAB can deliver a unified experience — from digital checkout through to real-time settlement and reconciliation — within 12 months, it will hold a genuine advantage over competitors still relying on third-party payment processors. If integration stalls or introduces friction, the strategic rationale weakens.

A second question concerns platform openness. Will Banked continue to serve non-NAB clients, or will it become an exclusive NAB asset? The answer will determine whether this acquisition strengthens or fragments Australia's open banking ecosystem. Regulators at the ACCC and RBA will be watching closely, particularly as the CDR framework matures. A third dimension is geographic expansion. Banked's UK origins give NAB a toehold in European open banking. Whether NAB chooses to invest in expanding Banked's European presence — or instead redirects resources exclusively toward the Australian market — will signal how ambitious the bank's global payments strategy truly is. Brad Goodall's comment about a "globally proven" platform suggests the Banked team favours international reach. The coming 18 months will reveal which vision prevails.

Key Takeaways

• NAB's acquisition of Banked, confirmed 14 May 2026, converts a 4-year invest-deploy-acquire strategy into full ownership of a Pay by Bank platform.
• The deal enables real-time, account-to-account payments that bypass card networks, reducing costs and settlement times for NAB's merchant clients.
• Banked competes with GoCardless, Volt, and Token.io — but its integration into NAB gives it unique distribution through one of Australia's 4 major banks.
• Settlement speed, not just cost, is the non-obvious competitive moat: real-time funds access improves cash flow for SMEs constituting approximately 97% of Australian businesses.
• Execution risk remains: payments infrastructure integrations are complex, and platform openness post-acquisition is an unresolved question for the broader fintech ecosystem.

References & Bibliography

[1] TechFundingNews. (2026, May 14). London fintech Banked acquired by Australian banking giant NAB to help businesses receive payments faster. https://techfundingnews.com/london-fintech-banked-acquired-by-australian-banking-giant-nab-to-help-businesses-receive-payments-faster/

[2] Banked. (2026). Official website. https://www.banked.com/

[3] National Australia Bank. (2026). Official website. https://www.nab.com.au/

[4] NAB Ventures. (2026). Investment portfolio. https://www.nabventures.com.au/

[5] Reserve Bank of Australia. (2025). Consumer Payments Survey. https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/

[6] Reserve Bank of Australia. (2026). Review of Retail Payments Regulation. https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/

[7] Open Banking Limited. (2025). Open Banking Impact Report. https://www.openbanking.org.uk/

[8] European Central Bank. (2025). Payment Statistics. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/intro/html/index.en.html

[9] Financial Conduct Authority. (2026). Open Banking oversight. https://www.fca.org.uk/

[10] Consumer Data Right. (2026). CDR framework overview. https://www.cdr.gov.au/

[11] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2026). Official website. https://www.accc.gov.au/

[12] Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2025). Online retail data. https://www.abs.gov.au/

[13] Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. (2025). Small business statistics. https://www.asbfeo.gov.au/

[14] GoCardless. (2026). Official website. https://gocardless.com/

[15] Token.io. (2026). Official website. https://www.token.io/

[16] Visa Australia. (2026). Official website. https://www.visa.com.au/

[17] Mastercard Australia. (2026). Official website. https://www.mastercard.com.au/

[18] Business20Channel.tv. (2026). Fintech category coverage. https://business20channel.tv/?category=Fintech

[19] Business20Channel.tv. (2026). Open Banking Payments Outlook 2026. https://business20channel.tv/open-banking-payments-outlook-2026

[20] Business20Channel.tv. (2026). Cross-Border Payments Analysis 2026. https://business20channel.tv/cross-border-payments-2026