GoCardless, a direct bank payments firm, has acquired Nordigen, an open banking data provider.

The acquisition allows GoCardless to provide free open banking connectivity at scale.

Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO of GoCardless, said, “Over the past few years, it’s been amazing to watch open banking grow from a trend on the horizon to a global phenomenon which has given rise to a market worth over $400 billion. We realized early on that this technology would drive bank payments for decades to come and over the last 18 months, we’ve accelerated our push into open banking as part of our vision to build the world’s bank payment network.