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Trustly

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

As of 1 September 2026, Trustly's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. An account-to-account payments provider letting shoppers pay directly from their bank account instead of by card, saving merchants the interchange fees card networks charge. Softwr lists it under APIs. Trustly is made by Trustly Group, available on Web, API.

Overview

What Trustly does

Trustly connects to consumer bank accounts to let them pay merchants directly, handle instant refunds, and set up verified payouts, avoiding the interchange fees that Visa or Mastercard charge on card transactions. Merchants typically see costs in the range of 1.15 to 3.15 percent depending on volume and market, still often below blended card processing costs once interchange, scheme fees and processor markup are included. The fact worth recording is ownership: Nordic Capital, a Sweden-founded private equity firm, holds a 51.1 percent majority stake in Trustly, with Alfven & Didrikson at 11.1 percent and BlackRock at 8.9 percent. Trustly has discussed an IPO but as of its most recent public comments said one was still at least a year out. A private equity-majority ownership structure means Trustly's roadmap is ultimately steered toward an eventual exit (sale or listing), which is a different incentive structure than a founder-controlled or public company. Buyers are merchants, particularly in e-commerce, gaming and financial services, wanting to reduce card processing costs and offer instant bank transfer payment and payout options. The trade-off is the category-wide one for pay-by-bank: consumer familiarity and trust in paying by card remains higher than paying by bank transfer in most markets, so Trustly is usually offered as an additional checkout option rather than a card replacement.

What people use it 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

The honest half

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Trustly

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

  • Trustly logo
    Trustly
    vs
    Yapily logo
    Yapily

    Yapily: If you need broader open banking account data access alongside payment initiation

  • Trustly logo
    Trustly
    vs
    Swan logo
    Swan

    Swan: If you need embedded bank accounts and cards rather than pay-by-bank checkout

Pricing

What Trustly costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Trustly

On request

  • 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

Capabilities

Features

  • Pay by bank checkout

    Direct account-to-account payment at checkout, bypassing card networks

  • Instant refunds

    Refunds processed directly back to a customer's bank account

  • Verified payouts

    Payout functionality with account verification, used heavily in gaming and gambling

  • Multi-market bank connectivity

    Coverage across US and European bank account payment rails

  • Merchant dashboard and reconciliation

    Transaction reporting and reconciliation tooling for merchants

  • Fraud and risk tooling

    Account verification checks aimed at reducing payment fraud

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Who owns Trustly?

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

Is Trustly going public?

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

What does it typically cost a merchant?

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

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Trustly, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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