Some readers may recognize BPAY as the predominant Australian billpay provider. The company started back in the 90s as an entity co-owned by several of the large banks. The company now offers the OSKO service as well, a real-time payments layer built on NPP, Australia’s real-time payments system launched in 2018.
This piece, appearing in IT News, speaks to the expansion ambitions of BPAY as it has created API sandboxes for bank development of more modern payments capabilities:
‘Australian online payments behemoth BPAY has taken another major stride forward in its push to modernise Australia’s payments landscape, opening up a new developer sandpit and releasing four APIs into the market to spur the clean-up of bank legacy systems….It’s a bold strategic move for the low-cost, high-value money pump, which now pushes approximately $450 billion a year in volume, or $1.8 billion a bank day, with the average transaction size sitting at $900.’
One of our themes in the 2019 Outlook for commercial and enterprise payments was the idea of linkage, or digital connections between all payments types. These included demand for faster payments systems, now live in more than 30 markets, automated payables solutions, gaining traction now in the SME space, supplier enablement to reduce e-payment friction, and increasing demand for transparency and lower costs in cross border payments.
The author goes on to make a number of points about the potential technical and process advantages across cash cycle management, as well as the potential to replace cards in bill pay transactions:
‘Assuming uptake is strong – and BPAY is a long game player – the new functionality is set to take a bite out of the credit card and direct debit segments of the payment industry that are ripe for disruption, especially on the domestic payments front….And there’s also no getting away from the fact the new API’s are deep, core bank and enterprise tech and as such unlikely to stimulate much publicity from venture capital fueled fintech cheer squads.’
Worth a quick read for those who try to keep up with events across global markets around all the new developments in corporate (and other) payments.
‘Like we said, this stuff is down in the engine room of the payments giant but it will start to make its way into operations and financials software fairly soon, especially incumbents like SAP and Oracle are increasingly challenged.’
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
