American Express Streamlines Onboarding With Tink

Need to Know

• American Express will integrate Tink’s open banking platform into its onboarding process for new cardmembers.
• The integration will allow customers to connect their bank accounts, eliminating the need for them to manually enter information such as income, identity, and other account details.
• Tink is a fintech that specializes in streamlining customer data access for some of the biggest payments providers and banks in the world.
• American Express will launch the Tink integration in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, and Belgium.

Analysis

American Express has partnered with fintech Tink to make the onboarding process more seamless for new cardholders.

AmEx will leverage Tink’s open API to allow new customers to connect their bank accounts to their AmEx account, sharing vital onboarding information such as income, and personal details such as name and address. The integration will eliminate the need for customers to manually input such details, making the onboarding process not only more seamless but substantially quicker.

Tink’s open-banking platform technology will also make it easier for American Express to more quickly and accurately perform risk assessment when approving new credit card customers.

“Open banking technology not only speeds up the digital application process but also helps us make better decisions,” Fredrik Sauter, head of growing markets at American Express said in a statement. “When looking for an open banking partner, Tink was a clear choice for us, due to its position as the leading European open banking platform.”

Tink, founded in 2012, uses an open API to securely connect a customer’s bank account to a third party such as American Express. Tink collects transaction history, including loans, investments, and other account data, with their permission, and collects their information — including transaction history, account data, loans, and investments. Tink’s partners, like American Express, can then use this data as needed.

“Tink’s account verification, income verification, and risk analysis technology will streamline the onboarding process for American Express customers, as we work together to create the future of financial services,” Tink’s CEO and co-founder, Daniel Kjellén, said. “This sets the standard for how larger brands are using open banking technology to convert analog processes to digital, enhancing the customer experience.”

American Express will debut the Tink integration in Europe, to customers in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, and Belgium.

Open banking, specifically the allowance of data-sharing, has proven a key tool for a number of financial institutions, as they seek to adapt to an increasingly digitally-minded — and convenience-motivated — customer base. TD Bank, for instance, recently inked a deal with Finicity that will allow TD to offer customers the option to stop inputting banking credentials, such as passwords, with third-party financial management services, while Bank of America recently launched a data-sharing integration with Plaid.

American Express has been working recently to strengthen its digital offerings, most recently by launching a digital receipt transparency tool in February, which allows customers to digitally view transaction details such as order number, date of order, and merchant description, within the Amex app. The company also recently expanded its partnership with Coupa Pay, which allows businesses to pay suppliers quickly, easily, and transparently using virtual cards to the US, after debuting it in the UK and Australia.