"The pandemic has focused European financial institutions on three key priorities. Three quarters (74%) of executives believe that there is an increasing need to improve their digital service offering to optimise onboarding and handle more customers online. On the other hand, 70% are also focusing on customer experience, but with the aim of differentiating themselves from competitors and boosting engagement in an increasingly digital world. Finally, for 68% of financial executives, the focus is on returning to profitability, through automation and streamlining operations," concludes a study by Swedish fintech Tink, which specialises in providing open banking services.

The study coincides with the announcement on Thursday of its acquisition by Visa for $2.2 billion, which had been discouraged by regulators from going through with its purchase of Plaid for $5.3 billion.

"Over the past ten years we have worked tirelessly to build Tink into a leading open banking platform in Europe, and we are incredibly proud of what the entire Tink team has created together. We've built something incredible, and at the same time, we've only scratched the surface. By joining Visa, we can go faster and further than ever before. Visa is the perfect partner for the next stage of Tink's journey, and we are extremely excited about what it will bring to our employees, our customers and the future of financial services," said Daniel Kjellén, CEO and co-founder of Tink, which is connected to 3,400 banks in Europe, including ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Nordea and Caixa Geral de Depósitos.

There are 440 such providers in Europe. The acquisition should enable Visa to compete with Mastercard, which bought Finicity last year for $825 million.

, the open banking market will be worth $416 billion.