Modulr, the UK finance technology that offers “Payment as a Service” as an alternative to commercial and wholesale transaction banking, has secured GBP 18.9 million in growth funding. The injection of capital will be used further to develop the payments platform and launch new products and services, including its European expansion. It makes a total of over GBP 43 million, excluding the GBP 10 million grants, which came from the Capability and Innovation Fund.

The funding round was led by Highland Europe, a leading European Growth Capital firm, apart from participation from existing investors, namely, Frog Capital Blenheim Chalcot.

“We are solving the problem of relationship and technical access to commercial and wholesale transaction banking,” co-founder and CEO Myles Stephenson told TechCrunch. “We’re providing a complete alternative to using a bank for payments: technology, regulatory permissions and direct access to the payment schemes.”

Last year, the bank was counted among a few non-banks to gain direct access to Faster Payments and Bacs (Bank Payment Schemes). “We see ourselves as the plumbing layer behind the scenes – delivering the payments infrastructure that enables other businesses to automate payment flows and reconciliation, embed payment flows within their platform and build entirely new payment services for their customers,” added Stephenson.

To date, businesses in the sectors—fintech, alternative banking, travel, accounting, etc.—have processed more than GBP 25 billion in payment through this platform. The partner clients of Modulr are Sage, Liberis, Iwoca, and Salary Finance. Talking about the competition, Stephenson said that Modulr is replacing the payment services provided by a bank combined with a technology service.

Speaking more on growth, he added, “What we think makes us stand out is our sole focus on being a B2B and infrastructure provider with access to, and trust of, key regulators and payment networks/schemes.”

Overall, the banking app provides an equal amount of access to payment schemes but is more resilient, reliable, and powerful.