iGaming Payment Solutions
Xace Review
Is It the Right Payment Solution for Your iGaming Business?
Adequate
Xace is a UK-incorporated alternative-banking provider built specifically because mainstream banks refuse to take gambling MCCs. Xace Limited was incorporated in December 2018 in London by David Hodkinson and Adam Grist, with the product going to market in 2020. The company holds a UK FCA Authorised Payment Institution license (FRN 948213) under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, a Malta Financial Services Authority license through Xace Malta Ltd (granted February 2024), and a FINTRAC Money Services Business registration in Canada (October 2022) aimed at Ontario-licensed operators, with about 40-51 staff across the UK, Malta and a Cyprus office in Limassol announced in May 2025. PitchBook records $1.75M total raised, and Tracxn shows a March 2020 seed round with Lunicorn Ventures named publicly. The official site claims around €2bn a year in payments processed across customer accounts. Structurally the product is a regulated payment-account provider, with virtual IBANs, multi-currency support (EUR, GBP, USD, CAD plus 16+ others), FPS/SEPA/SWIFT/BACS/CHAPS/ACH rails and virtual Visa debit cards issued through Modulr, wrapped with a separate gateway product (Xacepay) connecting to up to 280 processors and a PSD2 Open Banking interface for AIS and PIS. The Standard Gaming Payment Account is £250 a month plus a price-on-application joining fee. Era, Xace's newer product for fully-regulated operators in Europe and North America, is fee-free, with no onboarding, no monthly and 0% on transactions, which is Xace's attempt to keep regulated operators from drifting to Genome or Mifinity. The Trustpilot sample is two reviews, and Glassdoor is 2.1/5 from seven reviews with a consistently negative tone toward leadership. Xace is the bank for gambling operators that can't get a bank. It is not a PSP, a card acquirer or an orchestrator, so the right move is to run it alongside one of those rather than instead of one.
Quick Info
- Type
- Alternative Banking / Open Banking
- Founded
- 2018
- HQ
- London, UK
- Pricing
- Subscription + per-transaction
- APMs
- N/A
- Settlement
- T+0 - T+1
iGaming Score
- iGaming Fit
- 6.0
- Geographic Coverage
- 5.5
- Security & Compliance
- 5.5
- Fees & Pricing
- 5.5
- Tech & Integration
- 5.5
- User Trust
- 7.0
Our iGaming Score: 5.6/10
Weighted scoring across five criteria
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| iGaming Fit Built end-to-end for iGaming. Sector pages for online casinos, sportsbooks, gaming affiliates, white-label brands, software suppliers, land-based, esports and prediction markets. No SoftSwiss/EveryMatrix connectors, because the product is banking rather than a platform | 30% | 6.0 | Adequate |
| Geographic Coverage UK (FPS, BACS, CHAPS), EU (SEPA, target2), Canada (FINTRAC MSB for Ontario operators), USD ACH, plus SWIFT for the rest of the world. Cyprus office opened May 2025. Light on LATAM and Asia | 22% | 5.5 | Adequate |
| Security & Compliance FCA Authorised PI (FRN 948213), MFSA-licensed via Xace Malta Ltd, FINTRAC MSB in Canada, EMD Agent of Modulr (FRN 902828). Funds segregated under EMR 2011. PayRate42 Green compliance rating. No FSCS coverage, which is standard for EMIs | 20% | 5.5 | Adequate |
| Fees & Pricing £POA joining fee plus £250/month per Gaming Payment Account, plus per-transaction custom. Era is fee-free for fully regulated EU/NA operators, with no onboarding, no monthly, 0% per transaction. The two tiers exist for a reason: Curacao operators pay, UKGC/MGA operators don't | 16% | 5.5 | Adequate |
| Tech & Integration REST API plus a PSD2 Open Banking (AIS + PIS) sandbox. The customer portal is the main interface. Public GitHub presence is essentially nil. Adequate for treasury use, thin for developer-led evaluation | 12% | 5.5 | Adequate |
| User Trust Trustpilot 3.5/5 from 2 reviews, a sample too small to read. Glassdoor 2.1/5 from 7 reviews with consistent C-suite and micromanagement complaints. €2bn processed annually per the site, but few named customer case studies | 0% | 7.0 | Strong |
| Overall | 100% | 5.6 | Adequate |
We score each provider on 5 weighted criteria using a 1 to 10 scale. iGaming Fit carries the most weight at 30% because that is what matters most for gambling operators. Geographic Coverage gets 22%. Security & Compliance gets 20%. Fees & Pricing gets 16%. Tech & Integration gets 12%. The final score is a weighted average of those 5. Trustpilot is shown for context but carries no weight, since player reviews of casinos are not a read on B2B acquiring quality.
Score Explanation
iGaming Fit is the strongest dimension. Xace is one of the very few payment providers built end-to-end for gambling, with every sector page, every product and every compliance posture sized for iGaming. There is no SoftSwiss or EveryMatrix connector because Xace is not a platform partner; it is the bank account on the other side of the platform. Geographic Coverage is solid in the markets that pay: UK Faster Payments, SEPA across the EU, Canadian FINTRAC for Ontario, USD ACH and SWIFT, and the Cyprus office added in May 2025 strengthens the Mediterranean iGaming corridor. LATAM and Asia are reachable through SWIFT but Xace is not a primary banking option for operators headquartered there. Security and Compliance is good for a small fintech, since dual FCA and MFSA licensing is rare at this size, the EMD Agent relationship with Modulr is well-documented, and the PayRate42 'Green' rating with no recorded violations is meaningful. Fees and Pricing splits two ways: £250/month is reasonable for what you get if you are a Curacao-licensed operator who can't open a Barclays account, while Era's 0% offering for fully-regulated operators is competitive. Tech is the dimension that drags, because the PSD2 Open Banking interface exists with a sandbox but the public developer surface is thin, with no GitHub repos of substance and documentation living behind the portal, which is fine for a treasury team and a warning sign for an engineering-led evaluation. User Trust suffers on small sample size: two Trustpilot reviews tell you nothing, while seven Glassdoor reviews at 2.1/5 with a 15% recommendation rate and recurring complaints about leadership behavior tell you something, so read them directly before signing.
Who Is Xace Best For?
Weighted scoring across five criteria
Recommended For
- Curacao-licensed online casinos without UK or EU banking. Curacao-licensed online casinos and sportsbooks that have been refused by mainstream UK and EU banks. This is the bread-and-butter Xace customer. The standard playbook in iGaming is to incorporate in Malta or Cyprus, secure a Curacao license, then spend three months getting rejected by every bank you contact because they classify the MCC as too high-risk. Xace was built specifically to take those accounts: it is FCA-regulated, MFSA-licensed, and operationally comfortable with gambling source-of-funds, so the compliance team is what you are actually buying. The £250/month sticker price is small relative to the cost of not having a regulated EUR or GBP account at all.
- Gaming affiliates and software suppliers needing iGaming-friendly accounts. Gaming affiliates and software suppliers who service the gambling industry without holding an operator license themselves. Xace has dedicated sector pages for both. Affiliates running performance marketing for casinos and sportsbooks need to receive payments from operators in EUR, GBP, USD and CAD, and they need a bank that will not block 'gambling-derived' inbound transfers, while software suppliers selling RGS, game content or platform services into operators face the same MCC-classification problem from the supplier side. Xace's gambling-friendly stance covers both, and the affiliate business account in Canada specifically targets agencies working with Ontario-licensed operators.
- White-label casino operators handling player float. White-label casino brands and small-to-mid-market gambling operators handling player float. The dedicated 'White Label Casino Account' product is built for operators running multiple skins on a shared platform license. Multi-currency IBANs let an operator hold player float in EUR, GBP and USD separately rather than constantly converting, and virtual Visa debit cards issued through Modulr enable corporate-card spending without exposing operating accounts. For an operator processing €500k to €5M monthly across two or three brands, the account architecture is purpose-built.
- Ontario-licensed Canadian operators needing local CAD rails. Canadian operators licensed in Ontario through iGaming Ontario. Xace's October 2022 FINTRAC MSB registration was positioned explicitly at the Ontario license wave. Xace.ca operates CAD-denominated business accounts with conversion into 8+ alternative currencies, which is useful for operators running multi-jurisdictional brands that need to repatriate CAD revenue back into a EUR or GBP holding company. Most iGaming-focused payment providers do not have a Canadian regulatory footprint, which makes Xace one of a small set of options for Ontario-specific treasury needs.
Not Recommended For
- Operators needing primary card acquiring. Operators whose primary need is card acquiring. Xace is not a PSP, a card acquirer or an orchestrator. Xacepay is a gateway connecting to up to 280 processors, but it is not Xace's own license to acquire card transactions, so your Visa and Mastercard rates and chargeback liability sit with the underlying acquirer in that network. If the core problem you are solving is taking Visa and Mastercard deposits for your casino, Nuvei, Paysafe or emerchantpay are the answer, and Xace solves the adjacent problem of where the money sits once it lands.
- Crypto-native businesses wanting on/off-ramp. Crypto-native operators wanting an on-ramp or off-ramp under one roof. Xace serves crypto businesses as customers, since providing fiat banking to digital-asset firms is one of the segments listed on its site, but it does not process crypto deposits, run a stablecoin treasury, or offer the kind of crypto on/off-ramp that BitPay, CoinsPaid or NOWPayments provide. For a crypto casino that wants to take BTC and USDT deposits and settle to fiat, Xace is downstream of the actual crypto rails rather than part of them.
- LATAM and Asia-headquartered operators. Operators headquartered in LATAM, Asia or Africa whose customer base sits in the same regions. Xace's commercial muscle is in the UK, EU, Cyprus, Malta and now Canada. SWIFT gives nominal global reach, but the bank-account product is not optimized for BRL, MXN, INR or any of the alt currencies that drive LATAM and Asian gambling markets. AstroPay or PayRetailers in LATAM and EBANX for cross-border emerging-market acquiring serve those markets in ways Xace does not.
- Teams wanting one vendor for accounts plus acquiring plus checkout. Operators trying to reduce vendor count to one. Xace is by design a piece of a stack, the bank-account piece, sometimes plus a gateway. You will still need a card acquirer or PSP, you will still need a crypto rail if you take crypto, and you will likely still need an orchestrator if you route across multiple PSPs. Nuvei or Paysafe deliver more pieces in one contract, so if procurement is asking you to consolidate vendors, Xace is the wrong direction.
Geographic Coverage
Per-market verdict, regions, and market focus
Regions
- Europe
- United Kingdom
- North America
Coverage Analysis
Direct banking-rail coverage runs to UK Faster Payments, BACS and CHAPS for GBP; SEPA and target2 for EUR; USD ACH; and CAD via the FINTRAC MSB registration. SWIFT covers everything else, which means cross-border to roughly 200 countries with reasonable settlement times of 1-3 business days correspondent, but at SWIFT fee economics rather than instant-payment economics. The office footprint of UK (London HQ), Malta (Xace Malta Ltd at Birkirkara) and Cyprus (a Limassol team announced May 2025) tells you where the operational support sits, and the Cyprus expansion targeted the Mediterranean iGaming corridor specifically, where Malta, Cyprus and Gibraltar-licensed operators cluster. Canada is the newest direct market, supporting Ontario license-holders via xace.ca with a dedicated affiliate account variant.
Regional Breakdown
What Xace does not do well geographically is LATAM (no BRL/MXN local-acquiring or domestic rails), Asia (no INR/IDR/PHP rails) and Africa (limited mobile-money integration). The Xacepay gateway claims worldwide reach across CIS, LATAM and Asia through its 280-processor network, but that is the card-processing layer rather than the account product. For an operator pushing into Tier 3 markets, Xace handles the operator's home-base treasury account but not the local-method deposits flowing in from the player side. The bank-account model is geographically limited by design, since Xace is not trying to be a LATAM specialist.
Key Features for iGaming Operators
Products, payment methods, and verticals
Key Products
Gaming Payment Accounts (IBAN), Era (fee-free regulated-firm account), Xacepay (card processing gateway), Open Banking PSD2 interface, Virtual Debit Cards, FX, Multicurrency
There are six product groupings. The Gaming Payment Account is the core: a regulated business account with a virtual IBAN, multi-currency holdings, FPS/SEPA/SWIFT/BACS/CHAPS/ACH access and virtual Visa debit cards, at £POA joining plus £250/month, which is what most Curacao-licensed operators sign up for. Era is the newer fee-free variant for fully regulated operators in Europe and North America, with no onboarding fee, no monthly fee, 0% transaction fee and the same banking-rail access. Xacepay is the gateway product at xacepay.com, connecting to up to 280 card processors and acting as a switch across regions, operationally distinct from the account product and marketed to merchants wanting card acceptance. PSD2 Open Banking is the AIS and PIS interface for TPPs, with sandbox documentation at xace.io/psd2-open-banking. Virtual Debit Cards via Modulr's Visa principal membership are issued separately for corporate spend. And the sector-specific account variants (White Label Casino, Gaming Affiliate, Software Supplier, Esports, Land-Based, Prediction Market) are the same regulated account with sector-tailored compliance pre-screening and marketing. The fee structure varies by use case, but the underlying infrastructure is shared.
Payment Methods
On the inbound side: FPS (UK Faster Payments), SEPA Credit Transfers, SEPA Instant where supported, BACS Direct Debit, CHAPS, SWIFT, USD ACH and CAD domestic transfers. Virtual Visa debit cards are issued by Modulr FS Limited under Modulr's Visa principal membership, usable for corporate spend, supplier payments and card-on-file scenarios. Xacepay sits separately and accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express and other card types through its 280-processor network, which is useful if an operator wants Xace to handle both the bank account and the deposit gateway, though the gateway acts as a connector to underlying acquirers rather than a Xace-owned acquiring license. Apple Pay and Google Pay are not surfaced as Xace-direct integrations but can be reached through whichever processor in the Xacepay network the operator routes to.
Verticals
iGaming is the headline focus and the structure of every page on xace.io. The specific sector products are Gaming Payment Accounts (the core), the White Label Casino Account, the Gambling Software Supplier Business Account, the Gaming Affiliate Business Account, Esports Payment Accounts, Land-Based Gambling Payment Solutions, Prediction Market Accounts, Influencer Accounts, and Competition and Giveaway Accounts. Adjacent verticals are also served: fintech, ecommerce (the standard MCC range), digital assets / crypto businesses as fiat banking customers, and CBD via Xacepay. The breadth is deceptive, because the products are largely the same regulated business account with sector-specific marketing and compliance pre-screening. Underneath, it is one gambling-friendly business account, and the sector pages are a customer-acquisition layer on top of it.
- iGaming
- Sportsbooks
- Gaming Affiliates
- White-Label Casinos
- Gambling Software Suppliers
- Land-Based Gaming
- Esports
- Prediction Markets
- Influencer Accounts
- Fintech
- Digital Assets
| Feature | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit Processing | Available | Instant (FPS/SEPA Instant) |
| Withdrawal / Payout | Available | Instant (FPS/SEPA Instant) |
| Instant Withdrawals | Available | Instant (FPS/SEPA Instant) |
| KYC / AML Built-in | Available | Semi-auto |
| Chargeback Protection | Not available | Merchant |
| Multi-Currency | Available | GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CHF, CZK, HUF, NOK, SEK, plus 10+ via Modulr SWIFT |
| API Integration | Available | REST API + Open Banking PSD2 (AIS/PIS) |
| Local Payment Methods | Available | Varies by market |
| iGaming Specialization | Available | FCA + MFSA-regulated payment accounts, 20+ currencies, virtual IBAN, gaming-MCC friendly, Era fee-free option for regulated operators, FINTRAC MSB for Ontario |
| Geographic Coverage | Available | 50 countries across Europe, United Kingdom, North America |
Pricing & Fee Structure
Fee structure and pricing model
Pricing & Fee Structure
Subscription + per-transaction pricing model
Custom
Custom
T+0 - T+1
N/A
Custom
Price on application
Price on application
No
Pricing Details
Two pricing models run in parallel. The legacy Gaming Payment Account is priced at a price-on-application joining fee plus £250 per month per account, with per-transaction fees set during onboarding based on volume and business type, published on the CFS Formations PDF and confirmed on Xace's own banking-fees comparison page. For an operator running one core EUR account, one GBP account and one USD account, that is £750 a month before transaction fees, meaningful overhead for a small operator and trivial for anyone processing €500k+ monthly. The Era product, marketed as the fee-free option for fully regulated gaming firms in Europe and North America, is just that: no joining fee, no monthly fee, 0% per transaction local or cross-border. The eligibility cut-off is the operator's license status, since Curacao-licensed firms cannot get Era while fully UKGC, MGA, Ontario and NJDGE-licensed firms can, and the Era pricing is Xace's response to operators considering Genome (also FCA/EMI, EUR/GBP/USD multi-currency, gambling-friendly) or Mifinity (e-money with a strong gaming focus). Xacepay gateway pricing is not publicly disclosed and varies by underlying processor. As a total cost, a Curacao operator on a Gaming Payment Account doing €1M monthly with three currency accounts should expect £750/month base plus £1k-£3k a month in transaction fees, all-in roughly £20k-£45k annually, while a UKGC-licensed operator on Era pays nothing directly, with Xace making money on FX spread and underlying card processing through Xacepay.
Negotiation Tips
If you can qualify for Era, meaning you hold a full gambling license in Europe (UKGC, MGA, SGA, ARJEL, AAMS and similar) or North America (NJDGE, MGCB, iGaming Ontario, Pennsylvania PGCB and similar), apply for Era and pay nothing, because there is no advantage to the legacy Gaming Payment Account if Era is available to you. If you are Curacao or other offshore-licensed, negotiate the joining fee toward zero and ask explicitly what the per-transaction fees will be after onboarding, getting them in writing rather than as a verbal 'POA', and push for sub-£250 monthly if you commit to multiple account variants (a EUR account, a GBP account, a USD account under one master agreement). If you also need card acceptance, decide separately whether Xacepay is your best gateway option or whether a direct relationship with Nuvei, emerchantpay or Paysafe gives you better economics, since bundling can be cheaper but can also lock you into Xace's specific processor network. Ask about the FX spread on currency conversions, which is where free accounts make their margin, and demand a sandbox test of the Open Banking PSD2 interface if you plan to integrate programmatically, confirming AIS pull latency and PIS execution before committing.
Speed & Settlement
Transaction processing and settlement timelines
Instant (FPS/SEPA Instant)
Player-initiatedInstant (FPS/SEPA Instant)
Operator payoutT+0 - T+1
To operator account20+ currencies (EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, CHF, CZK, HUF, NOK, SEK + others)
Settlement optionsInbound deposits land at the speed of whichever rail the sender uses. UK Faster Payments arrives within seconds, SEPA Instant arrives within 10 seconds where supported, and a regular SEPA Credit Transfer settles within a few hours to one business day. BACS and CHAPS settle same-day to next-day, SWIFT inbound is 1-3 business days correspondent-dependent, and USD ACH is next-day to T+2 depending on routing. Outbound payments mirror the same windows, and cross-currency conversions inside the account are quoted as instant. Card transactions through Xacepay follow the underlying processor's settlement schedule, typically T+1 to T+3 for European card acquirers in the 280-processor network. Refunds on bank transfers are largely irreversible by design, which is part of why gambling operators favor IBAN deposits over card deposits where regulator rules permit, while card refunds via Xacepay run 3-10 business days depending on the acquirer. The Open Banking AIS/PIS endpoints work in real time, but throughput depends on the receiving bank's PSD2 implementation. Settlement is generally same-day where the rail supports it, and the bottleneck is not Xace's infrastructure but the bank on the other side of any given transaction. Updated May 2026.
Integration & Tech
Developer experience and technical capabilities
- API Type
- REST API + Open Banking PSD2 (AIS/PIS)
- Onboarding
- 1-2 weeks
- Sandbox
- Xace Sandbox documented for PSD2 AIS/PIS Open Banking testing. Third Party Providers can register and test against non-real user data via the developer portal.
- Mobile SDK
- No
- White-Label
- Dedicated 'White Label Casino Account' product — Xace provides regulated business accounts to operators running white-label gambling brands. White-label here refers to the customer's casino product, not white-label of Xace's own platform.
- Docs Quality
- Adequate
Integration Time
Days to 2 weeks
Integration Assessment
There are two interfaces. The account product itself runs through the customer portal: open the account, hold balances across currencies, send and receive on FPS/SEPA/SWIFT/ACH, issue virtual cards and view statements, with no integration work needed for treasury use. For programmatic access, Xace exposes a REST API and, more substantively, a PSD2 Open Banking interface with both AIS (Account Information Service) and PIS (Payment Initiation Service) endpoints, plus a sandbox for Third Party Providers to register and test against non-real user data. That Open Banking surface is the real technical differentiator, since it lets a regulated TPP pull account data and initiate payments programmatically against a Xace customer's accounts, which most gambling-friendly bank-account alternatives do not offer. Xacepay gateway integration is separate, oriented to merchant card-acceptance rather than account access. Public GitHub presence is nil, and documentation is adequate but lives behind portal authentication rather than open source, which is fine for a treasury or finance team and a thinness for a developer-led evaluation.
Risk & Compliance
Licensing, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance
- KYC/AML Automation
- Available. Semi-auto
- Chargeback Protection
- Not available. Merchant
- Licenses
- FCA (FRN 948213), MFSA, FINTRAC MSB (Canada), EMD Agent of Modulr
- Fraud Prevention
- Manual review + Modulr safeguarding + transaction monitoring
- Responsible Gaming
- No
- Tokenization
- No
- Dispute Resolution
- Compliance team plus Modulr escalation
Compliance Context
FCA Authorised Payment Institution status (FRN 948213) under PSR 2017 is the most meaningful regulatory anchor in the stack. Funds held by Xace are segregated and safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 via Modulr's safeguarding infrastructure, and FSCS coverage does not apply, which is standard for EMIs in the UK, where coverage is via safeguarding rather than the deposit-insurance scheme. The MFSA license for Xace Malta Ltd provides EEA passporting and a second regulatory backstop, and the FINTRAC MSB registration in Canada brings AML supervision in that jurisdiction. The EMD Agent relationship with Modulr FS Limited (UK, FRN 902828) and Modulr Finance B.V. (Netherlands, DNB-regulated EMI, FRN R182870) means the card-issuance side runs through a fully-licensed EMI with Bank of England settlement and Visa/Mastercard principal membership. PayRate42 awards a 'Green' compliance rating, with no public regulator warnings and no FinTelegram-style coverage. The compliance posture is one of Xace's strongest sells.
About Xace: Company Background
Company and product information
- Company Name
- Xace
- Headquarters
- London, UK
- Founded
- 2018
- Employees
- 40+ per official 'About Us' page (May 2026). LeadIQ and Crunchbase show ~51 across two continents (Oct 2025). Offices in UK, Malta, and Cyprus (Limassol). Tracxn lists 11-50 band.
- Company Type
- Private
- Product Type
- Alternative Banking / Open Banking
- Licenses
- FCA (FRN 948213), MFSA, FINTRAC MSB (Canada), EMD Agent of Modulr
- Key Products
- Gaming Payment Accounts (IBAN), Era (fee-free regulated-firm account), Xacepay (card processing gateway), Open Banking PSD2 interface, Virtual Debit Cards, FX, Multicurrency
- Website
- www.xace.io
- Supported Verticals
- iGaming, Sportsbooks, Gaming Affiliates, White-Label Casinos, Gambling Software Suppliers, Land-Based Gaming, Esports, Prediction Markets, Influencer Accounts, Fintech, Digital Assets
- Integration Type
- REST API + Open Banking PSD2 (AIS/PIS)
- Settlement Speed
- T+0 - T+1
- Onboarding Speed
- 1-2 weeks
- Notable Clients
- N/A
Company History
Xace Limited was incorporated at Companies House on 28 December 2018 as company number 11742963, registered at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London. David Hodkinson, a British executive with 15 years across iGaming, finance, payments and banking, founded the company together with Adam Grist, who came from a marketing and business-development agency background working with finance and ecommerce clients. The product went to market in 2020, and the official 'About Us' page lists 2020 as the founding year while Companies House shows the 2018 incorporation date, which is the discrepancy reflected in third-party databases. The original thesis was simple and has not changed: every commercial bank in the UK and EU treats gambling MCCs as too risky to onboard, which leaves licensed operators, affiliates and software suppliers structurally unbanked, and Xace was built to take those accounts under proper regulatory cover.
In March 2020 Xace closed a small seed round (Tracxn discloses $368K) led by Lunicorn Ventures, with PitchBook later showing total funding to date of $1.75M. The early funding was modest by fintech standards, and Xace has never been a venture-scale story, so the product matured through the first two years on retained customer revenue and the £250/month-per-account economics. In October 2022 Xace registered with FINTRAC in Canada as a Money Services Business, explicitly targeting the Ontario gaming license wave through xace.ca and launching an affiliate-account variant for agencies working with Ontario operators. By the start of 2023 the company was operating in the UK and Canada with around 30 staff and serving what its marketing called 'thousands' of gaming firms, a count it has never substantiated with named-customer detail.
In February 2024 Xace Malta Ltd (C 102626, registered in Birkirkara) secured its MFSA license under the Financial Institutions Act, becoming a licensed Maltese payment institution and unlocking direct EEA service, the first substantive regulatory expansion beyond the original UK FCA authorisation. The same year the company expanded its currency support to include CHF, CZK, HUF, NOK and SEK, and integrated SWIFT to provide cross-border reach outside the SEPA and UK areas. In May 2025 Xace announced expansion into Cyprus, anchored on an existing team in Limassol and pitched as a way to deepen Mediterranean iGaming-corridor service, with Reuben Abela named CEO of the European division. By late 2025 staff count sat in the 40-51 range across the UK, Malta and Cyprus per official statements and LinkedIn data. The Era product, marketed as fee-free for fully regulated gaming firms in Europe and North America, launched as Xace's response to operators eyeing zero-fee competitors and as a way to attract the higher-quality regulated-license segment that £250/month accounts were starting to lose to free alternatives.
What Users Say About Xace
Our analysis of 2 reviews from Trustpilot and industry sources
Remaining 0% are 2-4 star reviews. Trustpilot does not publish a programmatic breakdown for intermediate ratings, so we report only the verified 5★ and 1★ shares.
Review Analysis
Trustpilot is two reviews, 3.5/5 average, split 50/50 between 5-star and 1-star. The 5-star review praises fast onboarding and gambling-friendly customer service, which the reviewer calls 'quite rare in the Gambling industry' and is on-message for what Xace markets, while the 1-star is unspecified. A sample size of two is not a basis for any judgement, since B2B account providers rarely accumulate consumer-review density because end users never see the IBAN layer. Scamadviser scores the site as legitimate, and PayRate42 awards a 'Green' compliance rating with no documented violations. Glassdoor is more informative in a negative way: 2.1/5 from seven reviews with only 15% recommending Xace to a friend, and the qualitative content is consistent, with repeated themes of 'extremely toxic environment from C-levels and founders,' micromanagement, employees contacted during sick days and time off, and employees losing jobs without explanation. One contrarian review mentions good salaries and occasional WFH. The sample is small at seven reviews, but the signal is consistent and concerning. A separate OffshoreCorpTalk community thread documents another pattern: applicants frustrated by Xace requesting full documentation packages, then rejecting without specifying a reason, which aligns with a high-touch compliance posture serving regulated operators rather than offshore corporate-services use cases.
Context for Operators
What you actually want for an Xace decision is operator references rather than consumer reviews. Xace does not publish customer names, and case studies are essentially absent, with Lunicorn listing Xace in its portfolio and quoting €2bn processed annually but no named customer testimonials. For an operator evaluating Xace, the diligence path is to verify the FCA register entry for FRN 948213 and the MFSA register entry for Xace Malta Ltd, then ask in iGaming operator communities for current customer experience (SBC events, GAMA, EGR member discussions, operator-focused Slack channels), then test the onboarding process against your own license type before any signed engagement. The published €2bn annual volume is the most meaningful operational number, the FCA and MFSA licenses are the most meaningful trust anchors, and the Glassdoor pattern is the most meaningful negative signal. Together those three pieces are the basis for a real decision, not the Trustpilot count.
Notable Clients
Xace does not publish a named customer list on its site, which is unusual for a B2B fintech of this age but consistent with the gambling industry's preference for discretion in banking relationships. The site references 'some of the biggest names in Gaming' as customers and quotes €2bn a year in payments processed across customer accounts, a volume number consistent across multiple PR releases and the Cyprus expansion announcement. PitchBook and LeadIQ list Xace's customer base at 'thousands' of gaming firms without detail, and PayRate42's compliance profile cites 'casinos, bookmakers, gaming operators and businesses licensed out of Curacao' as the explicit customer base. For an operator evaluating Xace, the reference-check approach has to be lateral, asking in iGaming operator communities (industry Slack channels, GAMA, EGBA member discussions, SBC events) rather than expecting Xace to put a casino CFO on a reference call. The discretion is real and largely a feature rather than a bug, but it complicates due diligence.
Operational Details
Business terms, contracts, and support
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Yes
- Minimum Monthly Volume
- No published minimum volume. Era account targets fully-regulated operators; standard Gaming Payment Account targets the rest of the iGaming sector including Curacao-licensed operators. £250/month fixed cost acts as effective floor.
- Contract Lock-In
- No explicit multi-year lock-in disclosed publicly. Account fees charged monthly.
- Migration Support
- Yes
- Min/Max Transaction
- N/A
- Mass Payouts
- Batch + real-time, No published limit
- Biometric / One-Click
- No
- Reporting
- Portal-based dashboard + Open Banking AIS feed
Xace exists because mainstream UK and EU banks refuse to onboard gambling MCCs. The product is essentially a regulated alternative-banking layer purpose-built for iGaming — virtual IBANs, multi-currency, FPS/SEPA/SWIFT, virtual Visa debit cards via Modulr, plus a separate payment gateway (Xacepay) and a PSD2 Open Banking interface. €2bn processed annually per the official site. Worth pairing with a card acquirer or PSP — Xace replaces the bank, not the gateway. Era product (fee-free for fully regulated operators in Europe and North America) is the operator-friendly option; the legacy £250/month Gaming Payment Account is for everyone else including Curacao-licensed firms.
Frequently Asked Questions
10 questions about Xace
Xace is a regulated alternative-banking provider for the iGaming industry. The core product is a business payment account with a virtual IBAN, multi-currency holdings (EUR, GBP, USD, CAD plus 16+ others), and access to UK Faster Payments, SEPA, SWIFT, BACS, CHAPS and USD ACH. Xace exists because mainstream UK and EU banks refuse to onboard gambling MCCs, leaving licensed operators, affiliates and software suppliers structurally unbanked. It is regulated by the UK FCA as an Authorised Payment Institution (FRN 948213) and by the MFSA in Malta. It is not a card acquirer, a PSP or an orchestrator, though it operates a separate gateway product called Xacepay that connects to up to 280 card processors. Treat Xace as the bank-account piece of the iGaming payment stack rather than the whole stack.
There are two pricing tiers. The standard Gaming Payment Account is a price-on-application joining fee plus £250/month per account, plus per-transaction fees set during onboarding based on volume and business type. Era, Xace's fee-free product for fully regulated gaming firms in Europe and North America, is just that: no onboarding, no monthly, 0% on transactions local or cross-border. Eligibility for Era is gated on your license, where UKGC, MGA, SGA, AAMS, iGaming Ontario, NJDGE and similar full licenses qualify and Curacao and offshore licenses do not. If you can qualify for Era, take it. The Xacepay gateway is priced separately and not publicly disclosed.
Yes, and the regulatory posture is one of the stronger reasons to pick Xace. Xace Limited is authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 948213) as an Authorised Payment Institution under the Payment Services Regulations 2017. Xace Malta Ltd (C 102626) is licensed by the Malta Financial Services Authority under the Financial Institutions Act since February 2024. Xace Canada is registered with FINTRAC as a Money Services Business (October 2022). Xace is also an EMD Agent of Modulr FS Limited (FRN 902828) for card issuance. Customer funds are held in segregated safeguarded accounts under EMR 2011, not FSCS-covered (no EMI in the UK is) but ringfenced from Xace's own balance sheet, and PayRate42 awards a 'Green' compliance rating. Verify each license on the relevant regulator's public register before signing.
All three serve iGaming with EMI-style multi-currency accounts, but the positioning differs. Genome is Lithuanian-licensed (Bank of Lithuania EMI) with strong EUR and gambling-friendly account access, broader geographic reach than Xace and more aggressive feature pricing. Mifinity is Irish-headquartered, Central Bank of Ireland-regulated, with a consumer-facing e-wallet alongside the business accounts that Xace does not offer. Xace's differentiation is the UK FCA license plus MFSA license plus Canadian FINTRAC MSB combination, which is a stronger regulatory triangle in the English-speaking gambling markets than either competitor. Xace is also the smallest of the three by employee count and processed volume. For a UKGC or iGaming Ontario operator, Xace's UK and Canadian regulatory footprint is the strongest reason to pick it; for a continental European or LATAM-focused operator, Genome or Mifinity may have a better commercial fit.
Indirectly, through Xacepay. Xace does not hold an acquiring license itself. Xacepay (xacepay.com) is a gateway connecting to up to 280 card processors across Europe, North America, CIS, LATAM and Asia, so operators route deposits through Xacepay and the actual Visa, Mastercard and American Express acquiring is done by the underlying processor. This is convenient if Xace is already your banking partner, but the chargeback liability and the actual processing rates sit with the underlying acquirer rather than Xace. For an operator whose primary need is card acquiring, a dedicated PSP like Nuvei, emerchantpay or Paysafe will typically give you better economics and a single relationship for both gateway and acquiring than going through Xacepay as a connector layer.
Per Xace's published FAQ, an initial acceptability review happens within 1 business day, a full document request follows, and the compliance review phase takes around 1 week, so end-to-end onboarding for a clean applicant runs 1-2 weeks. You will need standard KYB (incorporation documents, beneficial ownership, source of funds) plus gambling-specific documentation, including your gaming license, AML policy and KYC procedures on your end users, since Xace accepts only licensed online gaming firms with their own AML/KYC operational. Rejections are not unheard of, and the OffshoreCorpTalk community has documented applicants frustrated by Xace asking for full documentation packages and then rejecting without specifying a reason, so have your license number, AML policy and source-of-funds documentation ready before applying.
Yes. Curacao operators are arguably Xace's core customer base for the standard Gaming Payment Account product. PayRate42's compliance profile specifically calls out 'businesses licensed out of Curacao' as part of Xace's customer base, and the standard £250/month account economics are pitched at the operators that mainstream UK and EU banks reject for MCC reasons. The Era fee-free product, however, is only open to fully regulated operators in Europe and North America, so Curacao operators are not eligible for Era. If you are Curacao-licensed, expect to pay the £POA joining fee plus £250/month, but expect Xace to actually onboard you, which is more than most banks will do.
Worth reading. Xace's Glassdoor rating is 2.1/5 from 7 reviews, with only 15% of employees recommending the company to a friend. The recurring themes are consistent: 'extremely toxic environment from C-levels and founders,' micromanagement, employees contacted during sick days and time off, and employees losing jobs without explanation. One review notes above-average salaries and occasional WFH as positives. The sample size is small at seven reviews, but the signal is consistent and one-direction. For an operator considering Xace as a long-term banking partner, this matters because the customer-facing relationship is mediated by a small team where retention may be an issue, so read the actual reviews on Glassdoor before signing a multi-year arrangement. None of this is a deal-breaker, since many small fintechs have noisy Glassdoor profiles, but it is a meaningful piece of input.
Not directly. Xace serves crypto businesses as customers, since providing fiat banking to digital-asset firms is one of the segments listed on its site, but it does not process crypto deposits, run a stablecoin treasury, or offer the kind of crypto on/off-ramp that BitPay, CoinsPaid or NOWPayments provide. For a crypto casino that needs to take BTC, ETH or USDT deposits from players and settle the fiat to its operating account, you will pair Xace (or a similar fiat-banking provider) with a dedicated crypto gateway. CoinsPaid is the most common pairing for European-licensed crypto-friendly casinos, with CoinGate and NOWPayments as alternatives. Xace handles the fiat side after the crypto-to-fiat conversion has already happened.
Yes. Xace exposes a PSD2 Open Banking interface with both AIS (Account Information Service) and PIS (Payment Initiation Service) endpoints. Third Party Providers can register and test against non-real user data through the Xace Sandbox before going live with TPP integrations, and the interface is documented at xace.io/psd2-open-banking. This is one of the more interesting technical features in Xace's stack, because it lets a TPP pull account data and initiate payments programmatically against a Xace customer's accounts, which competing gambling-friendly banks (Genome, Mifinity) do not provide as openly. For an operator building an internal treasury automation tool, or a TPP serving multiple gambling operators with reconciliation or payouts software, the AIS/PIS interface is the integration path worth testing in sandbox.
Our Verdict: Should You Use Xace?
Final assessment for iGaming operators
Overall iGaming Score
Summary
Xace is a specialist iGaming bank-account provider, regulated by the UK FCA, the MFSA in Malta and FINTRAC in Canada, that exists to take the gambling-MCC accounts mainstream banks refuse. It is small (40-51 staff), focused (every page on the site is iGaming), and operationally credible (a PayRate42 Green rating, €2bn processed annually). It is not a PSP, a card acquirer or an orchestrator. For Curacao-licensed operators who cannot get a Barclays or Revolut Business account, Xace is one of the cleanest options in the market, and for fully regulated UKGC/MGA/Ontario operators, the Era fee-free product is a meaningful competitive offer. Pair it with a real card acquirer (Nuvei, emerchantpay, Paysafe) for deposits, plus a crypto gateway if needed. The Glassdoor pattern and the thin public customer references are worth pulling directly before signing.
Strongest Point
The combination of FCA Authorised Payment Institution status, an MFSA license through Xace Malta Ltd and a Canadian FINTRAC MSB registration is unusual at 50-person scale and is the most meaningful asset Xace has. Gambling-friendly banking by itself is a real differentiator, because most UK and EU banks will not even take the application from a Curacao-licensed operator. Xace will, under proper regulatory cover, with EUR, GBP, USD, CAD and 16+ other currencies, FPS/SEPA/SWIFT/BACS/CHAPS/ACH rails, virtual Visa cards via Modulr, and a PSD2 Open Banking interface. The Era product extending fee-free banking to fully regulated operators is a smart structural play to defend the higher-quality license segment against zero-fee competitors, and the €2bn annual processed volume is consistent and proportional to the staff size.
Key Limitation
Xace is one piece of an iGaming payment stack rather than the whole stack. It does not acquire card transactions, does not process crypto, does not run a deposit gateway in any direct sense (Xacepay is a connector to other processors, not a Xace acquiring license), has no meaningful LATAM or Asia rail coverage, and does not publish named customer references, which complicates third-party diligence. The Glassdoor pattern (2.1/5 from 7 reviews with consistent leadership complaints) is a real warning about internal stability that affects customer-facing continuity at this team size, and the Trustpilot footprint is too thin to read. The public developer surface is sparse, with no GitHub presence to speak of, though the Open Banking PSD2 sandbox compensates for treasury-led evaluations. Onboarding rejections without explanation are documented in offshore-corporate communities, which suggests a compliance posture that skews high-touch and sometimes opaque.
Recommendation
If you are a licensed iGaming operator, gaming affiliate or software supplier that cannot get a mainstream UK or EU business account because of MCC restrictions, Xace belongs on your shortlist alongside Genome and Mifinity. Verify the FCA register entry under FRN 948213 and the MFSA register entry for Xace Malta Ltd directly. If you qualify for Era (a full European or North American gambling license), apply for Era and pay nothing; if you are Curacao or offshore-licensed, plan on £POA joining plus £250/month per account and negotiate the joining fee toward zero. Read the Glassdoor reviews directly before committing to a multi-year arrangement. Pair Xace with a dedicated card acquirer for deposits, where Nuvei, emerchantpay or Paysafe are the typical stack partners, and with a crypto gateway (CoinsPaid, CoinGate, NOWPayments) if you need on/off-ramp. Run a sandbox test of the PSD2 AIS/PIS interface if you plan programmatic integration. Updated May 2026.
Pros
- Dual FCA and MFSA authorisation plus a FINTRAC MSB in Canada is strong for a 50-person fintech. UK Authorised Payment Institution status under FRN 948213, a Maltese Financial Institutions Act license through Xace Malta Ltd, and Ontario-targeted Canadian registration give Xace a regulatory triangle that very few iGaming-friendly bank alternatives can match, with a PayRate42 'Green' rating and no documented violations.
- Built end-to-end for iGaming, with sector pages for online casinos, sportsbooks, gaming affiliates, white-label brands, gambling software suppliers, esports, land-based, prediction markets and influencer accounts. The compliance team expects gambling source-of-funds and onboards accordingly, so where most banks reject gambling-MCC applications without reading them, Xace asks for the documentation, reviews it properly, and onboards in 1-2 weeks for clean applicants.
- The Era fee-free product is a meaningful structural offer for fully regulated operators in Europe and North America, with no onboarding fee, no monthly fee and 0% on transactions local or cross-border. UKGC, MGA, SGA, AAMS, iGaming Ontario, NJDGE and similar full-license holders qualify. This is Xace's defense against zero-fee competitors and a real reason for higher-quality operators to choose Xace over alternatives.
- Multi-currency depth: EUR, GBP, USD and CAD as core, plus CHF, CZK, HUF, NOK and SEK added in 2024, plus broader SWIFT reach. UK Faster Payments, SEPA (instant where available), BACS, CHAPS and USD ACH, plus CAD domestic, with virtual Visa debit cards issued via Modulr's principal membership for corporate spend. The full banking-rail breadth in one regulated account is useful for multi-jurisdictional operators.
- A PSD2 Open Banking AIS and PIS interface with a documented TPP sandbox. This is the technical feature that distinguishes Xace from most gambling-friendly bank alternatives, since competing EMIs of this size often do not expose proper PSD2 endpoints. For operators building internal treasury automation or TPPs serving multiple gambling clients with reconciliation or payouts software, the AIS/PIS surface is the integration path that matters.
- The Cyprus expansion (May 2025) plus the existing UK and Malta footprint puts staff in the three jurisdictions that matter for the Mediterranean iGaming corridor, with Reuben Abela as European CEO bringing operational seniority on the EU side. For operators based in Cyprus, Malta or Gibraltar, the local-relationship density is improving meaningfully through 2025-2026.
Cons
- The Glassdoor pattern is consistent and negative: 2.1/5 from 7 reviews with only 15% recommending. The recurring themes are 'extremely toxic environment from C-levels and founders,' micromanagement, employees contacted during sick days, and employees losing jobs without explanation. The sample size is small but the signal is one-direction, and at 50-person scale internal turnover affects customer-facing continuity directly, so your relationship manager may not be at Xace in 12 months.
- Not a card acquirer. Xacepay is a gateway connecting to up to 280 underlying processors, but Xace does not hold its own Visa or Mastercard acquiring license. For operators whose core problem is processing card deposits, you still need a dedicated PSP (Nuvei, emerchantpay, Paysafe or Worldpay) alongside Xace, which replaces the bank account rather than the card processor.
- Customer references are essentially absent publicly. The official site says 'some of the biggest names in Gaming' and quotes €2bn processed annually, but there are no named case studies, no testimonials on the site and no signed quotes. Discretion is normal in gambling banking, but it makes third-party diligence harder, since you have to lateral-reference through operator communities rather than calling a published customer.
- Geographic muscle is UK, EU and Canada. LATAM, Asia and Africa are reachable through SWIFT, but Xace is not optimized for BRL, MXN, INR, IDR or African mobile-money rails. For operators headquartered in or doing meaningful volume into those regions, Xace handles the home-base treasury account but not the local-method flows, where AstroPay, PayRetailers and EBANX serve those markets more directly.
- The public developer surface is thin. There is no GitHub org of substance, documentation lives behind portal authentication, and there is no NPM package or SDK in any major language. The PSD2 Open Banking sandbox compensates partially for TPP integrations, but for an engineering-led evaluation this is a real signal of how much the developer experience has been prioritized: adequate for treasury use, thin for product-led integration.
- Onboarding rejections without explanation are documented in OffshoreCorpTalk threads, where applicants report being asked for full documentation packages then rejected with no specified reason. Xace accepts only licensed gambling firms with their own AML/KYC operational, which is right and defensible, but the opaque rejection process burns applicant time, so if your license type is unusual or your structure is complex, expect to spend time on documentation that may not result in an account.
Ready to evaluate Xace for your business?
Xace vs. Alternatives: How It Compares
Similar payment processing solutions
Genome is the closest direct competitor, a Lithuanian EMI license with EUR-strong multi-currency, gambling-friendly account access and comparable price-to-value. Mifinity is Irish-headquartered with Central Bank of Ireland EMI authorisation and an additional consumer e-wallet alongside the business accounts. Trustly is the Open Banking specialist for instant A2A deposits and is complementary to Xace rather than a replacement, so pair them rather than pick between them, and Brite serves a similar A2A use case in the Nordics and Western Europe. For operators whose core need is card acquiring with banking attached, emerchantpay's iGaming-specific stack or Nuvei's full-stack model give you more in one contract than Xace plus a separate PSP.
When to Choose an Alternative
- Genome
Choose Genome if you want a comparable EMI-style multi-currency gambling-friendly account from a continental European license. Lithuanian Bank of Lithuania EMI, EUR-strong, with a broader feature set than Xace at similar scale. For operators where UK FCA regulation is not the priority, Genome competes directly on the same Curacao-and-up segment.
- MiFinity
Choose Mifinity if you want both a regulated business account and a consumer-facing e-wallet under one provider. Central Bank of Ireland EMI authorisation, iGaming-native, with an e-wallet side that Xace does not offer. For operators wanting to give players a Mifinity wallet option alongside the corporate banking, Mifinity does both.
- Trustly
Pair with Trustly rather than pick between. Trustly is the Open Banking A2A specialist for instant Pay N Play deposits, a feature Xace's account-side product does not replicate. Trustly handles the player-deposit flow and Xace handles the operator's underlying banking, so together they cover both ends of the European iGaming A2A flow.
- Brite
Choose Brite if your priority is Nordic and Western European Pay N Play instant A2A deposits with a developer experience that prioritizes embeddable checkout. Brite plus a separate banking provider may be more useful than Xace alone for a Nordic-focused operator.
- emerchantpay
Choose emerchantpay if you want iGaming-specific card acquiring plus banking under fewer vendors. emerchantpay is FCA-regulated (FCA AEMI), with named UKGC and MGA operator references, full card acquiring (which Xace lacks) and treasury services that overlap with Xace's account product.
- Nuvei
Choose Nuvei if you want one vendor for acquiring, gateway, banking and orchestration. 700+ payment methods, 50+ acquiring markets, named iGaming clients including Bet365 and DraftKings, and scale that dwarfs Xace. The trade-off is that Nuvei does not solve the Curacao-bank-account problem the way Xace specifically does.
- 5.0
Genome
Local/Regional PSP- Deposit Fee
- Custom (high-risk and low-risk tiers, not publicly disclosed)
- Settlement
- T+1
- Methods
- N/A
- Rating
- 3.3/5
- 5.9
MiFinity
iGaming-Focused eWallet + B2B Cashier- Deposit Fee
- 1.8-7.5% (player-side)
- Settlement
- T+1 typical
- Methods
- 80+
- Rating
- 3.5/5
- 7.6
Trustly
Open Banking PSP- Deposit Fee
- 0-1%
- Settlement
- T+1
- Methods
- N/A
- Rating
- 2.9/5
- 6.3
Brite
Open Banking- Deposit Fee
- 0.5-1.5%
- Settlement
- T+0 - T+1
- Methods
- N/A
- 7.4
emerchantpay
Full-Stack PSP- Deposit Fee
- Custom (IC++ or blended)
- Settlement
- T+1 - T+3
- Methods
- 80+
- Rating
- 4.2/5
Related Reading
Operator guides and analysis relevant to evaluating Xace.
End of Report. Xace Provider Assessment Report 2026
Prepared and reviewed by the iGaming Payment Solutions Editorial Team ·