NAB’s Acquisition of Banked: What It Means for Real‑Time Pay‑by‑Bank Payments

Banked packages these capabilities into a checkout experience that merchants can embed in their payment flows alongside cards and digital wallets.

Why NAB Wanted the Company

NAB described the acquisition as a way to strengthen its digital payments capabilities and help more businesses receive payments faster and at lower cost.

The strategic logic is closely tied to Australia’s payment infrastructure. The country already has real‑time banking rails, creating an environment where account‑to‑account payments can scale quickly for both online and business‑to‑business transactions. By owning Banked’s technology outright, NAB can integrate the platform more deeply into its services for merchants and corporate clients.

The bank had already been working with the startup for several years. Through NAB Ventures, it became an early investor and later rolled out Banked’s Pay‑by‑Bank technology to its customers before completing the acquisition.

Who Funded Banked

Before being acquired, Banked raised multiple rounds of venture financing from major financial and technology investors.

Key funding highlights include:

• A $20 million Series A round led by Bank of America and Edenred Capital Partners.
• Participation from investors such as Acrew, Force Over Mass, Firestartr, OM2, Love Ventures, Kuvi Capital, and Indeed founder Paul Forster.
• A Series A extension of more than $15 million led by Insight Partners, with support from Citi and NAB Ventures.

Across these rounds, the company raised more than $50 million in total funding, supporting expansion into new markets including the United States and Australia.

What the CEO Said About the Deal

Banked founder and CEO Brad Goodall framed the acquisition as a way to accelerate the reach of Pay‑by‑Bank payments by combining the startup’s technology with the scale of a major bank.

Goodall has previously argued that direct bank payments are gaining global traction as merchants seek alternatives to card networks, noting that demand is rising across both consumer and enterprise payments.

The VibePay Episode and Global Expansion Questions

The acquisition also comes after Banked pursued consumer‑facing expansion through acquisitions. In 2025 the company announced a deal to acquire UK payments app VibePay, aiming to boost Pay‑by‑Bank adoption through consumer rewards and merchant incentives.

Some reports later indicated that VibePay entered liquidation in early 2026 after funding problems and a failed acquisition process, although the available reporting on this outcome is limited and not consistently confirmed across primary sources.

Because of that uncertainty, it’s difficult to conclude that Banked definitively abandoned its UK or US strategy. However, the NAB acquisition clearly anchors the company more closely to Australia’s payments ecosystem, where the bank plans to integrate the platform directly into its real‑time payments strategy.

Why the Deal Matters for Payments

NAB’s move highlights a larger industry trend: banks are increasingly investing in account‑to‑account payment infrastructure to compete with card networks and fintech wallets.

If widely adopted, Pay‑by‑Bank systems could reshape how merchants accept payments online—offering faster settlement and potentially lower costs while keeping transactions within the banking system rather than card networks.

For NAB, owning Banked provides both the technology and the strategic positioning to push that model across Australia’s growing real‑time payments market.