APIs · head to head
Aiia vs Skyflow
Aiia
APIs
Open banking and open finance API platform, now operating as Mastercard Open Banking
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Skyflow
APIs
Data privacy vault that holds sensitive records outside your own systems
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Aiia it is now part of Mastercard rather than an independent company, so a business specifically wanting to avoid card network dependency in its banking infrastructure no longer gets that separation by choosing Aiia.; Skyflow reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.
- They diverge on capability: Aiia covers Bank account data access, Skyflow covers Tokenised storage.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Aiia and Skyflow actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (APIs).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Aiia
- Bank account data access
- Payment initiation
- Mastercard Open Finance integration
- Modern authentication support
- Multi-country coverage
- Developer documentation and sandbox
Only in Skyflow
- Tokenised storage
- Polymorphic encryption
- Field level access policies
- Data residency
- Secure functions
- PCI scope reduction
- Detokenisation gateway
- Audit trail
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Aiia
- A lending or credit product needing affordability checks via European bank account datanot Skyflow
- A personal finance or accounting product needing transaction history across Nordic and European banksnot Skyflow
- A payments product wanting account-to-account payment initiation under open banking regulationnot Skyflow
- A business wanting the stability and continued investment of Mastercard ownership behind its banking connectivity providernot Skyflow
Skyflow
- A fintech that wants card and bank account data out of its own infrastructure so its application servers leave PCI DSS assessment scopenot Aiia
- A company entering India or the EU with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operationsnot Aiia
- A health technology business that needs protected health information isolated from the analytics stack while still supporting aggregate reportingnot Aiia
- An engineering team that wants support agents to see masked identifiers and payment services to see real ones, enforced centrally rather than in every servicenot Aiia
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Aiia
- It is now part of Mastercard rather than an independent company, so a business specifically wanting to avoid card network dependency in its banking infrastructure no longer gets that separation by choosing Aiia.
- Pricing is not published and requires engaging Mastercard's open finance sales process, which can be a heavier sales motion than dealing with a smaller independent open banking provider.
- Its strongest bank coverage remains concentrated in the Nordics and Northern Europe, so companies needing dense coverage in Southern or Eastern Europe should verify current bank connectivity before committing.
- Brand confusion is real: developer documentation, login portals and older case studies still reference "Aiia" while newer Mastercard material refers to "Mastercard Open Banking," and a company researching either name in isolation may miss half the relevant material.
- As with any open banking platform, reliability still depends on the consistency of the underlying banks' own APIs, which is a systemic industry issue rather than something Aiia specifically controls.
Skyflow
- Reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.
- Every read of a protected field becomes a network call to a third party, so latency and an external availability dependency enter paths that were previously local database reads, and outage planning has to account for a vendor you do not control.
- Analytics and joins on vaulted data are constrained; work that was a simple SQL join now happens through secure functions or on tokens, and data teams routinely discover this after the engineering team has committed.
- Unwinding the vault later is a rewrite rather than a migration because tokens are threaded through every service, so the switching cost climbs steadily and the negotiating position at renewal weakens with each release.
- Scope reduction is an architectural claim your own assessor must accept, so the audit saving is real only if the implementation genuinely keeps sensitive values off your systems, and partial implementations that leave a cache or a log line in place deliver the cost without the benefit.
Pricing, plan by plan
Aiia
On request- Aiia Enterprise (Mastercard Open Banking)$undefined/year
- Pricing not published, quote via Mastercard Open Finance sales
Skyflow
On request- Skyflow Data Privacy Vault$undefined/year
- Platform fee plus usage by data subject count
- Priced additionally per data residency region
- PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA coverage
Which should you pick?
Choose Aiia if
- You need bank account data access.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want payment initiation.
Choose Skyflow if
- You need tokenised storage.
- You work on API, Web, Self-hosted.
- You also want polymorphic encryption.
Questions people ask
- Is Aiia or Skyflow better?
- Neither clearly leads. Aiia starts at On request and Skyflow at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Aiia or Skyflow?
- Aiia starts at On request and Skyflow at On request.
- Does Aiia or Skyflow run on more platforms?
- Aiia runs on Web, API. Skyflow runs on API, Web, Self-hosted.
- What is Aiia best used for?
- Aiia is most often used for a lending or credit product needing affordability checks via european bank account data, a personal finance or accounting product needing transaction history across nordic and european banks, a payments product wanting account-to-account payment initiation under open banking regulation, a business wanting the stability and continued investment of mastercard ownership behind its banking connectivity provider. Of those, a lending or credit product needing affordability checks via european bank account data and a personal finance or accounting product needing transaction history across nordic and european banks are not what Skyflow is typically brought in for.
- What can Aiia do that Skyflow cannot?
- Aiia covers Bank account data access, Payment initiation, Mastercard Open Finance integration, Modern authentication support. Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Polymorphic encryption, Field level access policies, Data residency.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Aiia: Is Aiia still an independent company?
No, it was acquired by Mastercard in 2021 and now operates as part of Mastercard Open Finance Solutions, referenced as Aiia Enterprise.
Skyflow: Does Skyflow really take my systems out of PCI scope?
It can, if card data never touches your infrastructure and the detokenisation happens at the boundary. Your QSA has to agree the design, so validate the architecture with your assessor before signing.
Aiia: Does the Aiia brand still exist?
Yes, in developer documentation and login portals, but the company behind it is Mastercard.
Skyflow: What does it cost?
Nothing is published. Reported annual contracts sit around 195,000 US dollars, built from a platform fee plus usage by data subject count and additional charges per data residency region.
Aiia: Which banks does it cover?
Around 3,000 European banks, with strongest coverage in the Nordics and Northern Europe.
Skyflow: How does it help with data localisation?
Records can be pinned to a specified region, so an Indian or EU residency requirement is met by the vault rather than by you running regional databases and operations teams.
Skyflow: Can I still run analytics on vaulted data?
Partly. Aggregates and comparisons are supported through polymorphic encryption and secure functions, but arbitrary joins against other datasets are harder than they were, and this is the most common late surprise.
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