Source: Founders Comms
TrueLayer, Europe’s leading Pay by Bank network, has announced the acquisition of In3, a Dutch fintech specialising in consumer credit via bank payments. The deal makes TrueLayer the only Pay by Bank network in Europe to offer both debit and credit at checkout, and means consumers will be able to choose to pay immediately or over time through the same Pay by Bank experience.
Until today, Pay by Bank has been focused on instant debit payments. TrueLayer’s expansion into credit changes that, giving merchants and consumers a genuine alternative to cards and card-dependent credit products at the point of purchase. Buy Now Pay Later will be TrueLayer’s first credit product to launch, with longer-duration credit products to follow later this year.
Europe’s online checkout experience has long been limited to two options: pay with a card, or borrow on a card network. That lack of choice has come at a steep price. Merchants pay high card acceptance fees, wait days for settlement, and absorb billions in chargeback fraud. Chargeback is projected to be used 281 million times globally this year, with up to 70% of those claims fraudulent, representing over $33.8 billion in disputed transactions. (1)
TrueLayer’s model replaces the card network entirely, with credit delivered through secure payments made directly from the consumer’s bank account, authenticated at the point of transaction, with transparent pricing and no hidden or unfair fees – eliminating the fraud factor that made chargebacks necessary in the first place.
The deal arrives at a moment of heightened focus on European dependence on US financial infrastructure. US card payment networks today process 95% of UK card transactions and a similar majority across Europe. (2)
The Pay by Bank category is growing rapidly – Pay by Bank transactions now account for up to 17% of European ecommerce transaction value, with recent adoption by Amazon and eBay underlining its arrival as a mainstream checkout option. (3) TrueLayer’s expansion into credit further strengthens the case that a credible, home-grown payment network handling both debit and credit at checkout can serve as an alternative to US card infrastructure.
Francesco Simoneschi, chief executive officer and co-founder of TrueLayer, said: “Pay by Bank has been successfully challenging card dominance at checkout for years. Today we are doing for credit what we have already achieved for debit. For the first time, consumers can choose to pay instantly or over time, directly from their bank account, through the same Pay by Bank experience they already know.
“With the addition of In3’s team and their deep expertise in consumer credit, we now have the people, the network and the products to build a truly independent European payments alternative to the card networks.”
Unlike traditional BNPL providers, TrueLayer is bringing credit into an existing payments network rather than launching a standalone credit product. That network already reaches more than 25 million consumers across 22 countries and processes over $150 billion in annualised payment volume, making it the largest of its kind in Europe. Real-time financial data and payment intelligence enable faster, more accurate credit decisions at checkout, quicker merchant onboarding, and pricing that is transparent and fair for consumers.
Hans Langenhuizen, chief executive officer of In3, said: “We built In3 because consumers deserved a credit option that was genuinely fair, simple and transparent. TrueLayer’s network gives us the infrastructure to bring that to millions more people across Europe. Together, we are giving merchants and consumers instant payments and flexible credit in a single checkout experience.”
For merchants, offering flexible credit at checkout can increase order values by 20% and boost conversion rates by 20-30%. (4) But traditional card-based credit solutions often come at the cost of handing the customer relationship to a third-party provider at the most critical point in the purchase journey. TrueLayer’s approach gives merchants greater ownership of the checkout experience, enabling them to offer both debit and credit through a single integration while maintaining consistent and direct engagement with their customers.
The result is higher payment volumes, increased basket sizes, real-time settlement, deeper customer relationships and clearer pricing compared with card-based credit products.
The acquisition follows TrueLayer’s purchase of Swedish paytech Zimpler in October 2025 and continues a broader pattern of UK fintech consolidation in Europe.
The deal also comes ahead of the first wave of Financial Conduct Authority regulation for the UK deferred payment credit sector, due to take effect on 15 July 2026.
In3 will continue operating from the Netherlands while its technology and products are integrated into the TrueLayer platform. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Main image L-R: Francesco Simoneschi, co-founder and chief executive officer of TrueLayer and Luca Martinetti, TrueLayer’s chief technology officer
Further reading: TrueLayer surpasses 15m active users in consumer network
(1) Datos Insights, Surging Card Disputes: A Global Perspective on the State of Chargebacks (April 2025)
(2) Payment Systems Regulator, Market review of card scheme and processing fees (March 2025)
(3) The Payments Association, The account-to-account (A2A) push: Reshaping UK payments and open banking (October 2025)
(4) Paypal, How BNPL is changing e-commerce (Jan 2025); RBC, 2021 Outlook: Payments, Processing and IT Services (April 2021)
