National Australia Bank has fully acquired Banked, the global account-to-account payments platform it has used since 2024 and backed through its venture arm NAB Ventures, in a deal that hands the country's third-largest lender direct ownership of one of the technologies it expects to power the next leg of the real-time payments rollout.
The transaction was announced by NAB on Thursday and confirmed in a follow-up statement on Friday. Banked, which provides a digital checkout and account-to-account, or A2A, payments rail that bypasses card networks, will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary in the near term before being integrated into NAB's technology environment over the coming months. The bank did not disclose financial terms.
NAB has been working with Banked since 2024 under a commercial partnership and previously took a stake through NAB Ventures. The two companies extended that arrangement in January 2025 when they launched Pay by Bank at checkout on Amazon's Australian store, giving NAB customers the ability to settle Amazon orders directly from their bank account rather than via a credit or debit card.
NAB group executive of transformation Shane Conway said the deal reflected a structural shift in how Australian customers want to move money. "Bringing Banked into NAB will continue to make it easier for customers to connect with us and manage payments, reconciliation and settlement in one place," Conway said.
In an interview with PYMNTS in early 2024, before the acquisition was on the table, Conway described the underlying demand from large merchants as a desire for real-time certainty. "We see the most inertia with very large clients, who have deep integrations into legacy payments infrastructure," he said at the time, noting that a growing number of businesses were seeking real-time payment experiences so they could know whether payments would be successful and reduce the costs tied to moving money or receiving it.
Banked chief executive and co-founder Brad Goodall framed the sale as the next stage of scale for the company. "The Banked team have worked hard to build a globally proven payments platform focused on the modern demands of developers and merchants of all sizes and scale," Goodall said. "Having the backing of NAB will allow the platform to reach more customers."
A2A payments have moved up the agenda for Australia's major banks as the New Payments Platform matures and as merchants push back against interchange fees on card transactions. Pay by Bank rails settle directly between bank accounts in real time, removing card scheme fees and giving merchants instant confirmation, which is particularly attractive in low-margin verticals such as groceries, marketplaces and bill payments.
For NAB the acquisition is also defensive. Westpac, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank have all built or partnered with real-time merchant payment offerings over the past year, and global wallet providers including Apple Pay and Google Pay have continued to embed themselves in the Australian checkout. Owning the rails outright gives NAB a way to bundle business banking, payments and reconciliation in a single product set, which is exactly the pitch Conway used to frame the deal.
Banked was founded in 2018 and has built customer relationships with a range of payment service providers, marketplaces and large enterprise merchants across the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and Australia. The acquisition will give NAB direct ownership of those relationships and the underlying technology, including the digital checkout flow that has been live on Amazon Australia for more than a year.
For merchants, the practical upside is the prospect of cheaper, faster A2A acceptance with a major Australian bank standing behind the platform. For NAB, the test will be how quickly it can convert internal usage and a single flagship merchant into a broader category position before its rivals close the gap.