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July 2, 2020

Trend of increased global use of digital payment technology to be accelerated

The Covid-19 pandemic will accelerate a worldwide trend towards contactless payments, according to a new report from the Emerging Payments Association EU (EPA EU), which was commissioned by Luxembourg for Finance (LFF).

While the shift to digital payments is not a new trend – over recent years investment in payments related fintech has been double that of other technology investments across financial services – the pandemic will accelerate the pace of change in the structure of the industry. It is pushing what were once powerful disruptors, such as credit and debit cards, to become the disrupted, as digital wallets gain favour, particularly with younger age groups.

This sped-up evolutionary process is not without its challenges. EPA EU and LFF’s report argues that global providers must keep customers’ personal data safe while still ensuring cross border interoperability.

Some of the report’s key takeaways from a review of different global markets include:

  • The European picture is fragmented. debit cards remain the continent’s preferred way to pay across all age groups. EPA argues for the continent to shine in a digital world, local networks and solutions need to be interoperable and frictionless across the EU
  •  In the US, more traditional credit and debit providers are under attack from big technology and nimble digital players. Apple Pay is now accepted in 60% of US retail locations, and one estimate suggests that Trustly, a digital account-to-account payment scheme, saw a US growth rate of approximately 600% in 2019.
  • In Asia, UnionPay has enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the electronic payment systems landscape, with more than six billion cards in issue as of June 2019. The company is now looking further afield to Europe, but local giants Alipay and WeChat are also expanding abroad.

Nicolas Mackel, CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, said: “The switch to digital payments looks set to happen much quicker than the shift to cards did in the past. The method of payment is becoming less important than the platform used, to the extent of becoming invisible. This report highlights the countries that have been early movers and are demonstrating best practice in the payments space.”

Thibault de Barsy, general manager of EPA’s EU office, added: “Despite being covered by the same regulation and having access to similar technologies, European consumers’ use of cashless payments differs drastically from one country to another. Nonetheless, instantaneous execution and openness of choice are the universal ingredients of success.”

The full report is available here: https://www.emergingpayments.eu/whitepaper/the-european-payments-landscape-in-perspective/

July 2, 2020

Sopra Banking Software signs strategic partnership with Tink

  • Sopra Banking Software (SBS), a global leader in digital banking and financing software, announces a strategic channel partnership with Tink, Europe’s leading open banking platform.

    Two European Fintech leaders in digital banking combine their technologies and expertise.

    This partnership will enable SBS’s customers to harness the full value chain of open banking, well beyond PSD2 compliance. By integrating Tink’s technologies, Sopra Banking Platform will offer new value and turn-key cloud native digital banking solutions.

  • Sopra Banking Platform’s capabilities – one of the richest catalogs of retail banking functionalities and business features, such as accounts, savings, lending, payments, channels and compliance. Through its engagement platform (Digital Banking Engagement Platform), Sopra Banking Software designs end-to-end digital banking solutions.

Tink’s technologies – financial data aggregation, payment initiation, data enrichment and personal finance management capabilities. Tink connects to more than 2,500 banks that reach over 250 million bank customers across Europe.

By integrating third-party data and orchestrating internal and external API services, banks will be able to design fully digital, personalized customer experiences.

SBS’s parent company, Sopra Steria, whose capabilities include digital services, consulting and infrastructure, will also support the deployment of its open banking solutions.

Open banking-enabled new digital banking solutions.

Sopra Banking Software’s roadmaps include Tink-enabled innovative use cases, such as multi-banking, customer onboarding, KYC, digital lending, enhanced credit scoring, integrated payments, North-South transfers and personal finance management.

Eric Pasquier, CEO at Sopra Banking Software, explained: “Tomorrow’s financial services will be inter-connected, embedded and often invisible. To differentiate, banks will increasingly need to actively connect with external third parties. Combining Sopra Banking’s unique sets of retail banking solutions with Tink’s open banking technologies will allow our clients to develop unique data-enabled customer experiences.”

Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, added: “As Europe’s leading open banking platform, we are proud to enter this strategic channel partnership with a global leader in digital banking like Sopra Banking Software. We look forward to working with Sopra Banking Software and supporting their 1,500 clients in 80 countries with our open banking technology.”

July 1, 2020

Zenus Bank becomes Visa Principal Member

Zenus Bank, the American digital bank is announcing today it is the first International financial entity to become a Principal Member of Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments.

Zenus Bank makes it easy and safe for clients to access, send, receive and store money in the USA from anywhere globally. By leveraging Visa’s brand, scale and global acceptance footprint, Zenus will bring a robust and innovative value proposition.

Under the agreement, Zenus will exclusively issue Visa-branded debit cards. Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance worldwide. In addition, Visa/PLUS is one of the largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in 200+ countries.

Zenus Bank, set to open later in 2020, will operate a full reserve business model without lending or credit activities offering an international alternative to local banks.

Zenus is taking the digital bank model to the next level by providing a cross-platform digital experience supported by state-of-the-art technologies in front-end, back-end and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver intelligent digital user experiences.

“Our mission is to give people in emerging economies an alternative to local traditional banks by offering a transparent, digital banking experience on par with leading global banks,” said Mushegh Tovmasyan, chairman & founder, Zenus Bank. “This great partnership with Visa – the world’s leader in digital payments will further enable us to become the competitive edge for our customers.”

Luis Guerra, country manager Visa said: “Payments technology is continuously evolving the way consumers and merchants interact and banks must adapt quickly their infrastructure and business model to succeed.

The collaboration with Zenus is one of the latest examples of Visa’s efforts to help clients enable individuals and small businesses with state-of-the-art digital payments capabilities in a world that is moving at a faster speed to adopt secure, frictionless and convenient consumption experiences”

Visa is working with financial institutions and technology partners to grant access to its vast set of APIs and to fraud prevention tools such as Visa Risk Manager, Visa Advanced Authorization and Visa Strategy Manager so they can offer a superior purchase experience in both card-present and card not present environments.

The Visa and Zenus Bank partnership builds on Visa’s long-term commitment to fintechs. Together, the two companies will focus on enhancing the new digital bank’s capabilities through solutions including, Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time payments platform and business-to-business payments solutions for small and medium businesses and global enterprises.

July 1, 2020

New European interest rate analysis: Pandemic sends corporate rates reeling

Europe has begun opening back up following extensive lockdowns to control the Covid-19 pandemic but, according to most analyses including that of German chancellor Angela Merkel, the continent has a long way to go on the road to recovery. The most powerful political players in Europe, Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron, joined the interventionist side along with the European Central Bank, making the case for strong measures to support the EU’s harder hit economies, despite protest from among the German conservatives and free market liberals. The ECB’s chief economist Philip Lane argued that the central bank’s steps thus far, including “PEPP; refinancing operations; collateral-easing measures,” have contributed to the EU’s stabilisation (PEPP referring to the pandemic emergency purchasing programme).

New Raisin research:

Cash glut at largest financial institutions drives rates down
Top 1-year interest rates on deposits in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, and as far east as Romania are between 0.57% and 0.97%, while 1-year deposits at those countries’ largest banks all offer rates under 0.05%, according to Raisin’s new research.

Rates on 1-year deposits at the biggest financial institutions in Spain, Belgium, Austria, and Ireland are hovering around 0.1%.

What’s driving the interest rate spread in European banking
The European Central Bank’s deposit rate currently stands at -0.50%. Banks are required to hold funds in reserve with the ECB to cover withdrawals by their customers. They generally deposit much more than the mandatory amount, however, and pay the penalty. The ECB’s interest rate is seen as a tool: by pushing down the cost of credit and making banks pay when they hold onto cash rather than lend it, the central bank intends to stimulate lending, investing and other economic activity. But at the moment many of the biggest banks simply have too much cash and are either reluctant to use it on lending or aren’t experiencing enough demand.

Smaller banks don’t have this problem, rather tending to need to attract more customers to build up their liquidity, to meet local and regional demand for loans. So small to mid-sized banks often offer more lucrative interest rates, and a gap develops between interest rates at the biggest banks and small to mid-sized institutions. For consumers the more profitable alternatives don’t involve greater risk, since all of their deposits are covered by the European deposit guarantee guidelines in each country.

Consumers in most of Europe can find higher rates if they search
The spread between interest rates at the largest banks and top available rates especially stands out in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark. Consumers in Spain and Italy, though, as well as Belgium, Austria and Sweden, cannot count on the big familiar banks in their markets if they want to earn any yield on their term deposits.

In the UK the ratio is just 2:1, one of the narrowest, and yet the difference for consumers is still a matter of earning twice as much interest by shifting money into top offers. Only in Ireland, when Raisin’s 1-year offers are excluded (currently up to 13 times higher than the average rates at the big banks), the ‘top offers’ have sunk lower than the biggest banks’ offers.

June 30, 2020

Leading Industry Report shows– small businesses’ need for flexible debt repayment solutions to survive the next 18 months

Funding Xchange’s Quarterly SME Lending Monitor highlights the need to address the stresses currently experienced by up to 40% of the businesses who have borrowed from alternative lenders.

Funding Xchange is the leading online portal appointed by the government to direct small businesses unable to access funding from their high street bank to other lending providers.

Data from March to June indicates that up to two out of every five businesses that currently have loans from ‘alternative lenders’ are now in discussion with the lenders as they are struggling to fulfil their repayment programmes as a result of the coronavirus lockdown impact.

‘Alternative lenders’ have provided another option for business who are unable to access funds from their high street bank. They have become established following the last financial crash as the market looked to introduce a more competitive business lending market.

Those very lenders are now facing issues themselves with limited capital to lend further to businesses. Without a flexible approach that ensures struggling borrowers make repayments, they themselves may be forced out of the market, reducing the competition that the government has been so keen to establish.

Chief executive of Funding Xchange, Katrin Herrling said, “It is no surprise that the data we have collected through the Funding Xchange platform over the past quarter indicates that many businesses are facing a difficult financial future in terms of their cashflow. To address this the government introduced the guaranteed loan support schemes, with repayments of these loans typically delayed by 12 months. Unsurprisingly, a large proportion of businesses have also sought concessions from alternative lenders as they their cashflow dried up during the crisis. There now needs to be a focus on how the repayment programmes are managed if we are to avoid putting businesses under further cashflow pressure, and potential failure, with a knock on impact to the lenders.”

Open Banking data does offer a solution according to Herrling. “The data that we are now able to draw from Open Banking sources, matched with credit and business performance data, lets us plot when and how a business can manage loan repayments without causing additional distress to the business’s financial position, and as such ensure the business’s ongoing viability. This is an area we are now working on with the ‘alternative lenders’ and the banks, and indeed are looking for the Pool E RBS Remedies Fund being managed by BCR to help us with, so that we can provide to them the models to help them with their decisioning and loan repayment restructuring.”

The monitor also draws out that many of the smaller businesses that needed financial support as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic were actually unable to access it.

Whilst start-ups and sole traders have accounted for 40% of the requests for loans, less than 5% of these have actually been funded.

June 30, 2020

Alternative lender Capital on Tap expands to Spain using Marqeta API-powered platform

Marqeta, the leading global modern card issuing platform, today announced it has helped one of the UK’s fastest-growing companies, Capital on Tap, to expand its small business credit lending services to Spain. Capital on Tap will be using Marqeta to power payment processing for its small business credit card, offering a working capital facility of up to €50,000 for small businesses. Capital on Tap’s new Spanish users will be provided with a new, Marqeta-powered credit card, offering small businesses a faster and more transparent way to fund their business.

Using Marqeta, Capital on Tap allows Spanish SMEs to access funding in a more streamlined and frictionless way. Its online onboarding processes mean customers don’t need to visit their bank and wait weeks for a response; instead, decisions on funding can be made within a day. In addition, Marqeta-powered credit cards provide more suitable lines of credit, while enabling greater customisation, expense tracking, and categorisations to meet the needs of small businesses.

“As the world begins easing Covid-19 restrictions, SMEs will be looking for accessible funding to help them get back up and running again. But to date, businesses globally have faced several issues trying to access working capital from state-backed schemes, while banks are taking longer to respond and are more reluctant to lend. As a result, SMEs have been unable to access useful lines of credit focused on their needs,” said Ruben Vidal, the Spanish MD for Capital on Tap. “With Marqeta, we’re able to address several of these issues right away. Our quick and easy processing means SMEs can focus on running their businesses, instead of jumping through hoops to secure the funding they need. We expect to issue millions of Euros to Spain’s 3 million sole traders and small businesses within 2020 and beyond, supporting their plans to reopen, grow and prosper.”

Marqeta’s simple API-driven approach made it simple for Capital on Tap’s systems and developers to customise the card programmes to meet the needs of the Spanish market. The team was able to replicate its existing card programme in the UK with a few modifications – for example, switching currencies and lending criteria. This helped to ensure all customers and payments are configured and processed in the same way, through one central global platform, reducing operational overheads.

“Launching a new card programme in a new region can be extremely complex. With other providers it would potentially involve an entirely new build, but with Marqeta it was surprisingly easy – we could essentially copy and paste our UK model across, with a few small but essential tweaks to ensure it was a perfect fit for the market,” added Zoe Newman, Capital on Tap’s head of international expansion. “Using our existing Marqeta sandbox environment we were able to begin testing as soon as we were ready. The Marqeta team was very responsive and on-call to help with any of our questions. If we’d had to start from scratch with another third-party provider, it would have taken over 6 months, but once we made the decision it only took a couple of days to get everything up and running. It has also provided us with a blueprint for future expansions across Europe and the US in years to come.”

 

June 29, 2020

Trade Ledger and Equifax extend partnership to support bid for Capability & Innovation Fund

Trade Ledger, the global banking platform, and Equifax, the consumer and business insights expert, have announced an extended partnership for the UK market which will bid for the BCR Capability and Innovation fund. The fund is part of the RBS Alternative Remedies Package, designed to improve the financial products and services available to small and medium enterprises.

Trade Ledger’s advanced loan origination and servicing technology, currently being implemented in a number of tier-one UK banks and alternative finance providers, has been purpose built to securely aggregate, store and transform any type of structured data directly from common SME applications like accounting packages to facilitate better digital credit products. It also combines transaction data from banks and credit history data from credit bureaus, such as Equifax to help better underwrite risk.

Building on an established data collaboration relationship, the two parties plan to work together to create a portable credit file solution for SMEs. The proposition will use breakthrough financial technologies such as Open Banking and Open Accounting to enable UK SMEs to build their credit profile.

If successful, the solution will be the first time a dedicated SME lending automation platform and a commercial credit bureau have collaborated on a fully interoperable credit passport for SMEs with the capability of being used to expedite and improve the entire credit application process for lenders and SMEs alike.

Martin McCann, co-founder and chief executive of Trade Ledger, comments: “Now more than ever, the UK’s smaller businesses need us to be on their side, so we’re delighted to partner with Equifax on the concept for a service which, if we are successful, will deliver tangible benefits to hundreds of thousands of hard-pressed SMEs and lenders simultaneously.

“By leveraging our unique open platform for SME finance and unique commercial data assets from Equifax, we have the chance to play a significant role in driving the UK’s recovery from Covid-19, as well as building a more sustainable and competitive financial services sector after.”

Jayadeep Nair, chief product & marketing officer at Equifax UK, said: “We’re acutely aware of the challenges faced by UK SMEs as a result of Covid-19, and want to play our part in supporting their recovery.

Using technology such as APIs and Open Banking, plus a combination of traditional and new data sources, we can build a better and more accurate picture of an SME’s financial health in real time.

“For SMEs, having a way of showing their stability and creditworthiness based upon the most current data is crucial to accessing finance as they look to rebuild after the pandemic.”

Equifax has been part of the SME sector in the UK for over 40 years, delivering credit reports, scores and credit limits. Equifax is one of the world’s largest information services businesses and, with circa 10,000 clients in the UK, has established relationships with the majority of the commercial lending market.

As part of the new collaboration, Equifax have also committed to joining Trade Ledger’s SME fintech taskforce, formed to establish a new business credit origination and underwriting infrastructure for lenders in the wake of Covid-19. Current taskforce members include leading UK fintechs Nimbla, Wiserfunding & Northrow.

June 26, 2020

PFS expresses its empathy for Wirecard customers and clients

PFS (a company of EML) has expressed its desire to support the cardholders and corporate clients of Wirecard at this time. The global fintech understands that steps taken today by the financial regulator in the UK may mean that Wirecard clients and programmes may have difficulty accessing the services that they had previously enjoyed.

Lee Britton, CCO at PFS stated: “Our first thoughts are with the customers and clients of Wirecard. Given our years of experience, reputation in the industry and sound financial footing, we stand at the ready to assist with a world-class payment solution suite. In all of my years in the sector, this has truly been an extraordinary week. We at PFS/EML enthusiastically work within regulatory frameworks worldwide to ensure we continue to positively shape and impact the digital commerce revolution.”

As an authorised and regulated electronic money institution, PFS is required to take all necessary steps to segregate and safeguard all monies received and held before being returned to a client or paid away to a clients’ order in line with Regulation 20 (Electronic Money Regulations 2011).

PFS adopts this segregation approach to safeguard client funds at all times. Money is held in bank accounts with several third-party banking partners, all of whom are authorised deposit-taking institutions, in multiple currencies. Each bank account is designated as “client funds” in order to segregate it completely from its own funds. All relevant funds are deposited by a client directly into segregated bank accounts which are designated as client funds to ensure they are immediately safeguarded upon receipt.

In addition to its robust financial safeguarding policy, PFS has best-practice risk controls, monitoring and governance in place and acts in strict accordance with recognised industry standards and procedures.

June 26, 2020

UK fintech market powers through with a surge in specialist hires

With a 53% growth in the last three years, an active fundraising scene, and a 20% surge in-demand during lockdown – fintech has become the poster-boy for how an industry can be in a position to respond quickly to change and opportunity.

According to recruiter Robert Walters Fintech: Challenger to Competitor, these are the four factors driving the fintech market forward:

  • Prolific fundraising: Fintech investment in the UK has exploded by 500% in the last three years, compared to 170% for the USA and 133% for Europe.
  • Geography: London has built a name for itself as the most reliable fintech hub, with the City receiving 80% of the total fintech funding that comes into Europe. In the UK, fintech remains London-centric, where the growth vacancies has primarily taken place in the capital (+16% since 2019, and +53% since 2017).
  • Ability to remote work: 85% of fintech firms were able to transition to remote working immediately due to their investment in tech, compared to a national average of 71% of firms who were prepared for instant home working.
  • Strategic hiring: Traditional banks are now following the fintech model by ramping up recruitment of tech professionals to make up a third of their workforce. Whilst banks now contend with a skills shortage, the fintech sector has been aggressively hiring tech specialists for the past three years whereby they now make up 46% of the sector.

Tom Chambers, senior manager – technology at Robert Walters comments:

“Fintech’s have done a tremendous job of creating an entrepreneurial culture – encompassing fast-thinking and implementation, cross-department collaboration, true flexi and agile working, and soft-benefits geared around wellbeing.

“In no other industry does the product design, tech, marketing and finance departments work as seamlessly together as they do in a successful fintech company.

“As a result, they have been able to attract the kind of professionals that every company is in need of now – those who are hyper-aware of how to maintain a good work-life balance, solid tech proficiency, and staff who are passionate and dedicated towards achieving company objectives.”

With just 2% of jobs* within the fintech sector immediately under threat as a result of Covid-19, versus 22% of jobs in the wider high-growth economy, the Robert Walters UK Fintech Salary Survey 2020 shares insight into what the hotspot roles are within the fintech market.

TALENT HOTSPOTS

 Profess Hotspots in FintechYOY growth
1Regulatory Compliance+56.7%
2KYC+51.9%
3Stakeholder Management+48.8%
4Data Analysis+45.6%
5Fraud Investigations+42.8%
6Digital Marketing+38.4%
7Financial Modelling+35.3%
8Customer Experience+33.4%
9Customer Relationship Management+28.3%
10Risk Management+25.8%

 

 Tech Skills Hotspots in FintechYOY growth
1Computer Vision+ 85.9%
2ReactJS+81.7%
3Information Security+63.9%
4Machine Learning+59.4%
5DevOps+56.5%
6Natural Language Processing (NLP)+53.0%
7UX Design+52.3%
8AWS+51.1%
9QA+46.6%
10Cloud Computing+41.3%

Regulatory compliance
Roles within the compliance field have grown by +57% year-on-year. With just 7% of the fintech talent pool being from a compliance background, professionals within this area can command as much as £90,000 p/a.

Daniel Connors, associate director at Robert Walters comments:

“As regulated entities, fintechs are required to adhere to the same, if not more stringent, guidelines and decrees by regulators as traditional financial services firms. An ability to meet regulatory requirements is integral to starting and operating a successful fintech.

“As regulations continue to change and become more stringent, experienced regulatory compliance professionals will become increasingly valuable to the sector.”

Know your customer (KYC)
Roles within the KYC field have grown by +52% year-on-year, representing 9% of the fintech talent pool.

Daniel Connors comments: “Firms having an understanding of who they are transacting with, and on behalf of, is critical to ensuring transactions are compliant with rules and regulations set out by regulators.

“As an increasing number of customers engage fintech firms, there is a direct need to increase the ability to on-board them in an efficient and compliant manner.

“This is accelerating recruitment of compliance professionals that can perform KYC checks to limit a firm’s likelihood of being involved in any illegal activity.”

Fraud investigations
Demand for fraud investigation experts has gone up by +43% in the last year, now representing 10% of jobs in the fintech sector.

Tom Chambers comments: “AI and machine learning capabilities have given rise to a breadth of financial transactions online, and with it, an alarming increase in financial crime.

“While AI is helping fintech firms detect fraudulent activity, specialists in fraud investigation with experience in leading intricate payment investigations are helping fintechs to improve their fraud response and boost their fraud prevention strategies.”

Customer experience
Customer experience has been hot on the agenda for the financial services sector for the last 18 months – with job roles in this area growing at +33%. A particular role to watch is customer experience manager where demand has skyrocketed within the fintech sector by +89%.

Customer experience managers within the VC-backed fintechs can command up to £80k, and for start-up or SME fintechs as much as £50k.

Daniel Connors adds: “As the fintech sector becomes overwhelmed with new products entering the market at a rapid pace, those best placed to succeed will be the fintechs with clear points of differentiation.

“As products offered become less differentiated, the need grows to acquire new customers via strong reviews, CRM, and customer experience, as does the requirement for specialists within this area.”

Risk management
Job roles within risk have grown by +26% year-on-year, representing 14% of jobs within the sector.

Risk analysts roles have increased by +27% and can command an average of £45k, and credit risk analysts have grown by +23% with professionals being paid an average of £52k.

Daniel Connors comments: “As fintechs continue to become more engrained and adoption rates increase, the need to have robust risk structures in place is essential.

“The balance of providing a fast, fluid and responsive service to compete in the fintech space, with robust risk controls will continue to be a challenge. As a result, professionals that can manage enterprise risk in a prudent manner will ensure the ongoing success of a business.”

UX and UI Design
The value of a good application and interface is evidenced by the rapid growth of UX (+52.3%) and UI (+40.4%) design skills within the industry – with professionals being able to command up to £76k in this field.

Tom Chambers comments: “Fintech has continued to challenge the banking industry with its upper hand in providing ease of use and simple, stylised user applications. No matter how good the tech is behind the scenes, a fintech product propels in value according to a firms’ continued investment in UX & UI Design talent.”

Product management
Demand for product management skills remains steady (+15% YOY growth) as fintechs at points of scale require product owners or managers with the right balance of technical know-how, stakeholder management capability and strong customer mindset. As a result, product managers are able to command up to £70k p/a, or 500 day rate as a contractor.

Tom Chambers comments: “As fintechs continue to scale their product teams, a growing number are hiring a chief product officer (CPO) to head up this function, acting as the organisational ‘bridge’ between the technology and the customer interface.”

Data scientists and machine learning engineers
Leveraging big data is becoming increasingly key to both the fintech and banking sectors as customer behaviour continues to evolve and become further segmented. With this, adopting Machine Learning and developing predictive analytics enable payments providers to make strides in areas such as understanding customer spending patterns, automating fraud detection and customising product offerings.

With this trend, we’re seeing banks and fintechs race to hire data scientists – demand is increasing by +71.2% annually within the fintech space, and +78% in the banking sector.

Machine learning engineers on average earn £80k for a large/VC-backed firm, and £66k for fintech SME’s.

Software engineers
The financial services space continues the ongoing battle to hire the best engineers in the constant push for improvements in availability of services, reduction of latency and real-time updates.

In particular, the industry is witnessing exceptional growth (+81.7%) of ReactJS talent, and DevOps professionals (+56.5%).

More generally, a continued focus on the use of APIs, Micro Services engineering, Containers and Cloud platforms are expected to be in force across the development space.

June 25, 2020

NatWest launches new open banking payments service

NatWest has today announced the launch of a new online payment service, Payit by NatWest, which allows customers to make instant online payments to participating retailers, without the use of a debit or credit card – resulting in a fast, fair, simple and safe payment experience.

Payit uses the Open Banking infrastructure to allow customers of UK banks to pay for products and services offered by retailers who use the service, which is targeted at mid to large corporate companies.

Open Banking was introduced in 2018 by the CMA to allow licensed financial service providers to share customer data, and NatWest’s use of the technology means it’s the first major UK bank to utilise open banking to facilitate payments in this way. In the coming weeks, Payit will also be introducing capability to allow merchants to process refunds.

With customers of the UK’s nine largest banks eligible, consumers don’t need to bank with NatWest to take advantage and can use the service by selecting the Payit button on the merchant’s payment page and then selecting the bank they wish to pay from. The consumer is then automatically redirected to their bank’s mobile or online banking to complete the payment.

Developed in partnership with Pollinate, built by Endava, and in pilot since 2018, Payit has won a host of accolades including Retail Banker International’s ‘Best Customer Facing Technology of the Year’ award, the Celent Model Bank Innovation Frontier Award and the Best Open Banking initiative at the 2019 Financial Innovation Awards.

Payit has also been named as a supplier to the Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) Payment Acceptance framework, meaning it is now available to UK government and the wider public sector. CCS supports the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services. In 2018/19, CCS helped the public sector to achieve commercial benefits worth £945m.

Accountancy software provider FreeAgent, will also offer Payit on its online and mobile platforms imminently, allowing customers to make instant payments from any bank or building society.

Paul Thwaite, CEO, Commercial Banking at NatWest said: ‘As the largest supporter of UK businesses, we are thrilled to launch Payit by NatWest, allowing mid to larger businesses with an online presence to accept payments directly from their customers’ bank accounts in near real time, providing them with an effortless and safe payment experience.

We are especially pleased to have used Open Banking technology to achieve this, allowing customers of the UK’s main banks to use this new payment option. Payit joins our growing portfolio of digital innovations for businesses, showing NatWest’s commitment to helping them thrive and achieve their potential.’

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