Open Banking payment provider Citizen rebrands as Yaspa

UK-based Citizen, which is a provider of payment services to the igaming industry, has become Yaspa as part of a rebrand.

Operators and merchants offering Yaspa’s payment method are being transitioned over to the new brand and the company’s website is also live at yaspa.com.

Kate Marsden, chief marketing officer at Yaspa, said: “I’m delighted to be introducing Yaspa to the world: same team, same payments, new name.

Kate Marsden, chief marketing officer at Yaspa

“The constituent letters of the new brand reflect what we do, ‘pay’, and how we do it, ‘ASAP’, and it also has a friendly and approachable feel that reflects our business customers’ experience of working with us.”

She added: “It took us a long time to find the name that suited us, but I’m thrilled at where we’ve ended up. Yaspa is short and simple – like our payment method – and works beautifully across multiple languages.”

A recent YouGov survey conducted by Yaspa showed that, particularly among the under-50s, Yaspa was identified as more memorable than Citizen as an online payments brand.

James Neville, co-founder and chief executive officer of Yaspa, said: “When the business was launched as Citizen back in 2017, the focus was on developing trusted identities for individuals – citizens. Open Banking has been a central part of delivering that data, and building that trust, and we have seen significant success on the payments side.

“As consumers continue to become more familiar with Open Banking payments, and begin to recognise their favourite payment methods, we decided to develop a new name that was unique to us.”

Amie Kadhim, head of commercial at Yaspa, won the Women in Open Banking Rising Star category at the Open Banking Expo Awards 2023. The ceremony took place at the Business Design Centre in London on 19 October.

In July, Yaspa appointed Dr Toby Sucharov as chief technology officer, from Playtech, where he was head of UK innovation and head of games Platform-as-a-Service.