Sydney, 10 March 2023
Cuscal Limited (Cuscal), one of Australia’s largest independent providers of payments, banking and regulated data has entered into a binding agreement, under which Cuscal will acquire a material controlling interest in Braavos Corporation Pty Ltd, the parent company of Basiq Pty Ltd (Basiq), a leading Data and Open Banking API platform, subject to customary conditions. A further update will be provided upon completion. This acquisition represents a significant and strategic investment by Cuscal in the future state of the Open Data economy. Bringing together some of the industry’s leading Consumer Data Right (CDR) and payment systems to accelerate the development of new services and customer experiences in partnership with our clients that will enable the convergence of payments, data and digital identity.
Basiq’s deep expertise in financial data aggregation and history of providing tools required to acquire and analyse financial data securely, are complementary to Cuscal’s payments experience and existing CDR solutions.
Basiq will continue to operate as a stand-alone business within the Cuscal Group. It is envisaged that there will be no material change to the current structure of the team at Basiq or to Cuscal’s regulated data business. Basiq will continue to provide clients and the broader industry with access to consented financial data and all the tools required to uncover insights through Basiq’s platform while collaborating closely with Cuscal on enabling new high-value use cases, including those that are made possible by CDR-powered Action Initiations.
Commenting on the acquisition, Craig Kennedy, Cuscal’s Managing Director said: “Today marks an exciting new chapter for Cuscal, as we fast-track our maturity in enabling the Open Data economy and cement our position as a leading provider of Payments and Regulated Data services in Australia.”
“Together with Basiq we have unmatched expertise and capabilities with respect to the combination of payments, data, and the CDR. We look forward to unlocking the full potential of these assets for the mutual benefit of our clients and the wider industry.”
CEO and Founder of Basiq, Damir Ćuća, added: “Using data-only solutions is helpful, but when combined with payments, the possibilities are limitless. Data is essential in making smarter payment decisions and with Cuscal’s expertise in payment processing we can create more innovative solutions that benefit end consumers.”
About Cuscal Limited (Cuscal)
For more than 50 years, Cuscal has championed competition in banking and payments in Australia. More recently, Cuscal has moved beyond banking and payments into the broader data economy. Drawing upon extensive experience managing payments data that is digital, regulated, must always be secure, and flows seamlessly between consumers and enterprise. As an accredited data recipient (ADRBNK2019) and the provider of compliant data holder solutions, Cuscal provides data holders and data recipients access to a suite of secure and robust capabilities for the collection, sharing, management and storage of data subject to CDR legislation.
About Basiq
Basiq’s vision is to make finance easy. Basiq sees a world where consumers are empowered to make smarter financial decisions and can engage with their finances in new and unique ways. Basiq enables this by providing an Open Finance API platform for businesses to build innovative financial solutions. The platform facilitates the relationship between fintechs and consumers by enabling access to consented financial data and executing smart data-driven payments.
Media contact
Simone Perryman: sperryman@cuscal.com.au
