The open banking startup becomes the latest European fintech company to be acquired by a US company. Apple is acquiring the UK-based fintech startup Credit Kudos for an undisclosed amount, as Apple typically doesn’t disclose the price of its acquisitions. Credit Kudos last raised £5 million ($6.5 million) in funding back in April 2020. Neither Credit Kudos or Apple could be reached to confirm the deal, which was first reported by the crypto-focused publication The Block, citing three sources close to the deal. The privacy policy link on the Credit Kudos website currently redirects to Apple’s privacy policy. Credit Kudos is a challenger credit bureau founded in 2015 by Freddy Kelly and Matt Schofield after Kelly struggled to get credit upon returning to the UK after working overseas in the US. It uses machine learning and real-time data to build up a fuller picture of a person’s credit score, rather than traditional agencies, like Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, which typically rely on older information to build up a profile, such as bank statements and utility statements. The open banking opportunity The firm has also benefitted from the recent wave of open banking regulations across the globe, which aim to open up consumer financial data via a set of secure application programming interfaces (APIs). Credit Kudos provides this data to clients for services such as affordability and risk assessments. In the USA, where open banking regulations have not yet been formally implemented, banks do not have a consistent set of APIs to work from, making companies that can provide access to this data highly valuable. As a result, open banking startups have been attracting plenty of M&A attention over the past few years. In January 2021 Visa called off its acquisition of the San Francisco-based financial data specialist Plaid, before turning its attention to the Swedish open banking firm Tink later that year. Elsewhere, Mastercard announced it was expanding its fintech capabilities by acquiring the Danish open banking startup Aiia in September of 2021. It is unclear at this stage what Apple plans to do with Credit Kudos, but it has invested significantly in its fintech capabilities over recent years, in particular its mobile Apple Pay wallet, and its Apple Card credit card, which is currently only available in the US and was built in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Related content news analysis AI chip shortages continue, but there may be an end in sight While GPUs are in high demand, they still need high-performance memory chips for AI apps. The market is tight for both — for now. By Lucas Mearian May 07, 2024 7 mins CPUs and Processors Generative AI Technology Industry feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 22635.3570 for the Beta Channel and Build 26120.461 for the Dev channel, both released on May 3, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 07, 2024 252 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 news analysis 3+ reasons Apple might want to make its own server chips Apple reportedly has a top secret plan to make AI chips for servers to provide generative AI services. By Jonny Evans May 07, 2024 5 mins Apple CPUs and Processors Generative AI opinion GenAI is to data visibility what absolute zero is to a hot summer day Given the plethora of privacy rules already in place in Europe, how are companies with shiny, new, not-understood genAI tools supposed to comply? (Hint: they can’t.) By Evan Schuman May 06, 2024 6 mins Data Privacy GDPR Generative AI Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe