This latest funding will be used to continue building on Form3’s momentum in the UK and expand services across Europe and North America.

Form3, the cloud-based, end-to-end, secure platform for global payments processing, today announced it has secured a strategic investment from Barclays PLC (LON: BARC) the Angel Co-Fund and several individual investors who have joined the existing shareholders in raising $5m.

Form3 will use this round of funding to continue expanding its API based Payments-as-a-Service platform to offer clients real-time and interbank payment types.

In addition to the current offering for UK Faster Payments, Bacs, CHAPS, SEPA and SWIFT, Form3 will launch SEPA real-time services from November 2017 and US real-time from early 2018.

Form3 plans to significantly expand its team to support its growth within the challenger bank and fintech community, as well as payment institutions, banks, and financial institution sectors.

Michael Mueller, CEO, Form3 said:

We see Form3 as the next generation of payments platform, Our clients quickly see the benefits of our cloud-native platform, often starting with a single payment type to improve their client proposition.

There is no roll-out of complex projects with big teams and monolithic payment hubs, gateways, integrations etc. Clients simply subscribe to a payment service and we take care of the rest. A low-cost setup and pay as you go commercial model for the first time makes leading edge payment capability accessible economically for small or very high volumes users.

We are very excited about the support we have received in this funding round, it is a testament to our growing client base and our ability to meet the market needs for better access to payment systems.

Dan Roberts, Managing Director at Barclays said:

Barclays is a world leader in payments capabilities and has a long track-record in payments innovation. We see Form3 as an enabler for positive change in the payments landscape. Form3 has rapidly deployed services to be a significant challenger to current technology options.

We view the emerging Payments-as-a-Service model as complementary to our existing capabilities, offering clients further choice. We look forward to working with Form3 as they build out their model.

Tim Mills, Investment Director at Angel Co-Fund, added:

We’re very pleased to be backing Form3 as they create an essential component in the global drive to deliver better payment processing, clearing, and settlement services. This vital connecting infrastructure will make many improvements and innovations in fintech and everyday commerce possible.