Trustly, a global payment method, announces that it is joining forces with SlimPay, a European leader in recurring payments, to set a new standard in recurring payments for merchants and consumers across Europe and the UK. SlimPay’s platform combined with Trustly’s proprietary technology will together bring a new, exceptional payment experience to the region.

Trustly’s acquisition of SlimPay will facilitate error-free payment registration, better conversion and flexibility, enabling consumers to pay bills, subscribe to a service or opt for flexible payment plans. The product synergy will create an intuitive payment process for consumers leveraging the best of Trustly’s Account-to-Account (A2A) technology and SlimPay SEPA direct-debit capabilities.

In 2022, Direct Debits totaling over EUR 10 trillion were collected across Europe, with 80% of these transactions occurring in markets where Trustly and SlimPay have combined operations. The combination will add to Trustly’s existing modern Direct Debit capability in the UK and Sweden and provide a comprehensive pan-European recurring payment service. Trustly and SlimPay will together improve the payments process for merchants and consumers in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

The acquisition of SlimPay comes shortly after the successful launch of Trustly Azura, a revolutionary new technology and data engine that will improve the payments experience for merchants and consumers through personalisation and data optimisation. By adding SlimPay’s recurring payments and sophisticated data interface to its offering, Trustly expects to further accelerate the roll-out of Azura.

Johan Tjärnberg, Group CEO of Trustly, comments: “We are thrilled that SlimPay is joining Trustly. SlimPay’s SEPA solution for modern Direct Debit in combination with the optimised experience of Trustly Azura will together be able to revolutionise the recurring payment experience and create a new industry standard. The addition of SlimPay is fully in-line with Trustly’s strategy to offer a unique 360 degrees embedded experience across all types of digital payments.“

Jerome Traisnel, CEO of SlimPay, adds: “Together with Trustly, we will bring a new, streamlined payment experience to the European recurring payments space, creating an unrivalled network of merchants and consumers across the entire repeat payment economy. We look forward to working with Trustly to build an innovative and comprehensive platform across Europe.”

SlimPay, founded in 2010, is a European leader in recurring payments, offering digital payment solutions through innovative technologies to merchants and consumers across utility, financial services, and retail sectors. SlimPay is an authorised payment institution under ACPR supervision.

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals. The parties have agreed to not disclose any financial details.

For more information, please contact:
Carlos Cancino
Communications Director, Trustly
tel: +46 70-216 77 85
e-mail: press@trustly.com

About Trustly
Founded in 2008, Trustly is a global leader in Open Banking Payments. Our digital account-to-account platform redefines the speed, simplicity and security of payments, linking some of the world’s most prominent merchants with consumers directly from their online banking accounts. Trustly can handle the entire payment journey, setting us apart from the competition and enabling us to offer an attractive alternative to the traditional card networks at a lower cost. Read more at www.trustly.com

The Swedish fintech company Open Payments has closed a 3 MEUR growth round. Industrifonden, Sweden’s venture capital fund, led the round, with participation from Sony Financial Ventures – Global Brain’s venture capital fund, as well as existing investors. The capital will be used for business-, product development and expansion.

Open Payments is one of the leading Open Banking platforms in the Nordics with focus on business to business (b2b) transactions. The company´s platform enables online banking functionality to be shifted from the online bank to the customers’ business systems and interfaces, so that the end user e.g. can approve and make secure, direct payments without having to login to their online bank. Open Payments platform connects to commercial banks (via API technology) to enable services such as payments, account reconciliation and cash management for embedding directly in client applications like ERP systems, payment providers and fintechs.

“We see an increasing demand from leading accounting and ERP systems and other financial systems that want to utilize Open Banking in their products in a secure and reliable way,” says Louise Brandt, CEO and founder of Open Payments. “Above all, they want to be able to provide various payments for their business customers, such as supplier payments and salary payouts. Open Payments has a cutting-edge expertise in this area and there are vast business opportunities for both us and our customers. We see that b2b payments are part of the Open Banking space where we have a first mover advantage and can take the lead internationally.”

Industrifonden was the lead investor in Open Payments latest round in 2020, and welcomes Sony Financial Ventures and Global Brain, as a co-investors.

“There are great opportunities with Open Banking since companies don’t need to be banks to provide secure banking functionality within their own systems,” says Anna Ljungdahl, Senior Investment Director at Industrifonden. “What they do need though is a player like Open Payments whose technology lowers the entry barriers to these opportunities. We’re happy to keep supporting the team and also welcoming global investors to Open Payment’s list of owners.”

Open Payments platform is developed based on the European directive PSD2. This regulatory framework is forcing banks to make account information and payment initiation services available to third parties, with the aim of opening up the market to players other than the banks to bring about new and innovative solutions for financial services.

Open Payment’s customer base consists of accounting and ERP systems providers and tech companies, who have integrated Open Payment’s platform in order to provide their own Open Banking solutions. What the customers have in common is that they have high demands for stability, security and reliability for the millions of business-critical transactions that are being processed. The company’s platform has been extremely well-received so far, with several new collaborations underway and Open Payments is looking to expand into new countries with both existing and new customers. In order to continue to be at the forefront of the Open Banking movement, Open Payments will continue to scale the product and develop the platform further during this year.

London – March 1, 2023 – Blackstone (NYSE: BX) and Sixth Street today announced that funds affiliated with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (“Blackstone”) and Sixth Street, have completed the previously announced sale of Kensington Mortgages (“Kensington”), the fast-growing specialist mortgage lender, to Barclays Bank UK PLC (“Barclays”).

Kensington, which is based in Maidenhead, has around 600 employees and originated approximately £1.9 billion of mortgages (including retentions) in the year ended 31 March 2022. Blackstone and Sixth Street jointly owned the business since 2015 during which time Kensington improved its processes and expanded its product offerings while achieving an extended period of accelerated growth.

The business is recognised in the industry for having a market-leading data and technology platform, which has facilitated profitable growth, product innovation and exceptional loan underwriting performance.

The transaction was announced on June 24, 2022.

About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our $975 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

About Sixth Street
Sixth Street is a global investment firm with approximately $65 billion in assets under management and committed capital. The firm uses its long-term flexible capital, data-enabled capabilities, and One Team culture to develop themes and offer solutions to companies across all stages of growth. Sixth Street’s London-based presence was formed in 2011 to invest in businesses and assets across Europe. Founded in 2009, Sixth Street has more than 400 team members including over 180 investment professionals around the world. For more information, visit www.sixthstreet.com or follow Sixth Street on LinkedIn.

Media Contacts

Blackstone
Rebecca Flower
Rebecca.Flower@blackstone.com
+44 (0)7918 360372

Sixth Street
Patrick Clifford
pclifford@sixthstreet.com
+1 (646) 906 4339

Oakland, CA, and New York, January 25, 2023 – The Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the Regents of the University of California (“UC Investments”) and Blackstone (NYSE: BX) today announced an expansion of their long-term strategic venture. UC Investments will acquire an additional $500 million in Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. (“BREIT”) Class I common shares with fees and terms consistent with existing BREIT shareholders. This follows the $4 billion investment by UC Investments into BREIT announced on January 3, 2023, bringing its total investment in BREIT to $4.5 billion.

This new investment, which is expected to close March 1, 2023 at BREIT’s public offering price on that date, will have the same structure, terms, and fees as UC Investments’ initial $4 billion investment, including an effective 6-year minimum hold period, and Blackstone will contribute an incremental $125 million of its current BREIT holdings into the strategic venture.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is acting as BREIT’s legal counsel and Goodwin Procter LLP is acting as UC Investments’ legal counsel.

About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our $951 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes “forward-looking” statements and “safe harbor statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and/or uncertainties, including those described in Blackstone’s and BREIT’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Blackstone and BREIT have based forward-looking statements on current expectations and assumptions and not on historical facts. Examples of these statements include, but are not limited to, any benefits expected to be achieved as a result of the transaction and statements regarding future performance. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements include the risks and other factors described in Blackstone and BREIT’s annual reports for the most recent fiscal year and any such updated factors included in their periodic filings with the SEC, as well as those described under the section entitled “Risk Factors” in BREIT’s prospectus, each of which are accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In providing forward-looking statements, neither Blackstone nor BREIT is undertaking any duty or obligation to update these statements publicly as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. If Blackstone or BREIT updates one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that it will make additional updates with respect to those other forward-looking statements.

CONTACT

Jeffrey Kauth
Jeffrey.Kauth@Blackstone.com
(212) 583-5395

21ST MARCH 2022

• ClearBank is the #1 ranked fastest-growing UK tech company according to Deloitte
• Largest UK next generation clearing and embedded banking platform, with more than 200 financial institutions and fintech customers, 13 million accounts, and £3bn in balances
• The only next generation player with direct access to all bank payment schemes, and the only embedded banking provider delivering bank accounts at scale, in the UK
• Investment will accelerate ClearBank’s international growth and expansion into new partnerships, products, and services

ClearBank, the largest next generation clearing and embedded banking platform in the UK, today announced a £175 million equity investment. The round was led by funds advised by Apax Digital, the growth equity arm of Apax, a leading global private equity advisory firm. Existing investors, CFFI UK Ventures (Barbados) Ltd and PPF Financial Holdings BV, also participated.

The new investment will accelerate ClearBank’s global expansion of its clearing and embedded banking offering, initially in Europe before moving into North America and Asia Pacific.

The first new clearing bank in the UK in over 250 years at launch in 2017, ClearBank is the only next generation payments provider with direct access to all banking payment schemes in the UK (e.g. Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS). As a regulated bank, ClearBank manages transactions end-to-end from order transmission to settlement, liquidity management and clearing.

As a leading supplier of embedded banking services in the UK, ClearBank provides over 13 million accounts to the customers of leading financial brands. ClearBank is the only platform providing bank accounts, with FSCS deposit protection, at scale, bringing embedded banking services to the mass market. This product offering is complimented by a range of related value-added services, including FX and multi-currency accounts

Unlike other providers with legacy systems, ClearBank’s end-to-end offering of regulated financial services is accessed via a single API to a powerful cloud-native software platform, which delivers greater speed, efficiency, and ease-of-use. It also enables innovation, including settling payments between customers on the ClearBank platform instantaneously, removing friction and lowering cost.

As a truly cloud native bank, the platform offers a new paradigm in resilience, with industry-leading uptime with no downtime for maintenance, unlimited scalability and elasticity, and triple real-time redundancy. Operationally, ClearBank has built a financially sustainable and highly scalable, low risk, business model, with all its £3bn of deposits held securely at the Bank of England, providing complete peace of mind.

ClearBank has seen tremendous growth and has been recognised as the #1 fastest growing tech company in Deloitte’s 2021 UK Technology Fast 50 awards together with the 2021 Card & Payments Award for Best Service.

This impressive combination has led to a customer base of over 200 financial institutions and fintechs, including Tide, Coinbase, Chip and Oaknorth Bank. ClearBank is also the only financial services provider to be awarded two grants, totalling £85 million, from the Banking and Competition Remedies (BCR) fund in delivering competition and innovation to UK SMEs.

ClearBank also plans to expand its range of products and services to include direct API-based access to interbank payment schemes such as SEPA, enhanced multi-currency accounts, and additional FX services. These capabilities will allow ClearBank to support existing customers in scaling internationally and welcome new customers in multiple markets.

Charles McManus, CEO at ClearBank, said: “ClearBank is the first proven and fully regulated cloud-native clearing bank in the UK for over 250 years. Over the last five years we have demonstrated the success of our business model and through our work with leading financial service providers, helped to both unlock their potential and bring about positive and meaningful change for UK businesses and consumers.”

“Our revenue growth is the proof of the momentum we have been gathering since 2017. It is this proof point and our transformative effect on access to banking services, traditionally a space characterised by high barriers to entry, which has given us the credibility to partner with and deliver seamless and secure embedded banking for award winning financial institutionspowerful fintech disrupters and government bodies alike.”

“The next challenge is delivering this innovation globally. To achieve this, we needed a strategic partner with the right cultural fit, sector expertise and geographic experience, something we found in Apax Digital.”

Mark Beith, Partner at Apax Digital, said: “All companies are becoming fintech companies, and ClearBank is providing the clearing and embedded banking infrastructure for them – starting with fintechs themselves. We’ve seen the power of its platform first-hand, and we are excited to partner with Charles and the existing shareholders to take ClearBank global.”

Niccolo Ferragamo, Principal at Apax Digital, added: “Combining a banking license with a modern, agile and scalable embedded banking infrastructure is hard. Doing it at scale, and while delivering exceptional customer satisfaction, is truly special. ClearBank has been quietly building the clear next generation leader in the UK on all key metrics, and we are thrilled to continue innovating the category together.”

ClearBank was advised by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP. The investment remains subject to PRA and FCA approval.