Trust, Tink and a global fintech opportunity | Rafa Plantier, Tink

In the blink of an eye, Tink has gone from a B2C player in one country in Europe to a B2B solution in eighteen markets, giving them access to more than 250m customers in Europe.

Rafa Plantier, Head of UK & Ireland at Tink describes to Lloyd Wahed how Tink is product growth led and their innovation is driving a rapid development in networks and services to providing accessibility for millions of people to the trusted institutions that hold and manage our money. One institution with decades of “trust capital” is Visa, who recently announced to acquire Tink, that will further their “network of networks” concept faster than they could have hoped a few years ago, opening up a global opportunity. You can feel the excitement from Rafa when he describes the opportunities that are presenting themselves around the world as markets open up.

Rafe worked at Stripe prior to joining Tink and so he has seen twice recently how a company can “grow out of a crowded market” and in open banking he is able to be part of “optimising the foundations for growth” at enterprise level. In Europe there is work to be done with the EU over regulation as the “currency of open banking is trust” and that needs suppliers, enterprises and states to be aligned.

Tink has nearly doubled it’s headcount in two years and because most of that time has been in the pandemic there are a significant number of staff who have not worked from a Tink office or met their colleagues face to face. Tink managers prioritise understanding the individual challenges of each staff member and this is also key to helping the integration of acquired teams. The nature of open banking is collaboration so one cultural pillar comes from the market, but there is no room for complacency, as the changes in work induced by the pandemic are unprecedented.