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APIs · head to head

Trustly vs Very Good Security

Trustly logo

Trustly

APIs

Pay-by-bank payments network, majority-owned by private equity firm Nordic Capital

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Trustly it is majority-owned by Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, so its long-term roadmap is ultimately oriented toward an eventual sale or IPO rather than indefinite independent operation.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: Trustly covers Pay by bank checkout, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Trustly and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where Trustly and Very Good Security differ
AttributeTrustlyVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
CategoryAPIsCybersecurity

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web, API), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Trustly

  • Pay by bank checkout
  • Instant refunds
  • Verified payouts
  • Multi-market bank connectivity
  • Merchant dashboard and reconciliation
  • Fraud and risk tooling

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Trustly

  • An e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptancenot Very Good Security
  • A gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accountsnot Very Good Security
  • A merchant wanting instant refunds processed directly to a customer's bank account rather than card reversal delaysnot Very Good Security
  • A business in a market with strong open banking adoption wanting pay-by-bank as a checkout optionnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot Trustly
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot Trustly
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot Trustly
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot Trustly

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Trustly

  • It is majority-owned by Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, so its long-term roadmap is ultimately oriented toward an eventual sale or IPO rather than indefinite independent operation.
  • Consumer familiarity with paying by bank transfer still lags card payments in most markets, so merchants typically see it used as a secondary option rather than a full card replacement.
  • The 1.15 to 3.15% merchant fee range is not a single published rate, so a merchant cannot know its actual cost without a sales negotiation.
  • As with all open banking-dependent payment methods, reliability depends on the consistency of the underlying banks' own APIs, which Trustly does not control.
  • Its verified payout functionality is heavily used in gaming and gambling, a sector with additional regulatory scrutiny, which is worth factoring in when evaluating vendor risk exposure by association.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

Trustly

On request
  • Trustly$undefined/month
    • Typical merchant cost of 1.15% to 3.15% depending on volume and market
    • Exact rate negotiated per merchant, not published as a flat card

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose Trustly if

  • You need pay by bank checkout.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want instant refunds.
Trustly review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is Trustly or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. Trustly starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Trustly or Very Good Security?
Trustly starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does Trustly or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, API, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Trustly best used for?
Trustly is most often used for an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance, a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts, a merchant wanting instant refunds processed directly to a customer's bank account rather than card reversal delays, a business in a market with strong open banking adoption wanting pay-by-bank as a checkout option. Of those, an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance and a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can Trustly do that Very Good Security cannot?
Trustly covers Pay by bank checkout, Instant refunds, Verified payouts, Multi-market bank connectivity. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Trustly: Who owns Trustly?

Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, holds a 51.1% majority stake; Alfven & Didrikson and BlackRock hold smaller stakes.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

Trustly: Is Trustly going public?

It has discussed an IPO but as of its most recent comments said one remained at least a year away.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

Trustly: What does it typically cost a merchant?

Roughly 1.15% to 3.15% of transaction value depending on volume and market, negotiated per merchant.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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