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As an industry first, Wagepay, the earned-wages access fintech based in Brisbane, has switched on PayTo for real-time customer payments. This has been done in partnership with Monoova, the award-winning Sydney-based payment service provider.
Spearheaded by the Reserve Bank of Australia, PayTo is a fast and data-rich service suitable for both one-off and recurring payments. Over time, it is expected that PayTo will replace several current payment methods such as traditional direct debits and online card payments.
Built on the New Payments Platform’s real-time infrastructure, PayTo debits are actioned and cleared instantly, which means that merchants do not have to wait days before money arrives, as is currently the case with direct debits. The immediacy and transparency of the experience also delivers confidence to consumers that they have paid their bills in the right amount at the right time.
Already, existing customers of Wagepay are being encouraged to create a PayTo mandate. In the first three weeks of going live, more than 3,000 PayTo agreements were issued by Monoova to Wagepay customers.
Wagepay’s Founder and CEO Tony Chan said: “Our customers are jumping straight in. They are moving away from direct debits. Now we really just need more banks to enable PayTo.”
Additional features of PayTo include stronger consumer controls and visibility of their active PayTo agreements/mandates, automated and versatile payment agreements, and more data, creating a better experience for both consumers and merchants.
“We see clear benefits in moving our customers onto PayTo so they can enjoy better visibility and control over their money. For us as a business, reconciliations are easier too, so PayTo is a much better user experience for everyone,” said Mr Chan.
Increasingly sophisticated payments options like PayTo have the potential to revolutionise how merchants, lenders and other businesses handle large volumes of payments.
Monoova’s CEO Christian Westerlind Wigstrom said: “For businesses, PayTo improves cash flow with real-time transactions and funds verification. Receiving cleared funds straight away is a big change to the way we think of debits in Australia. It also offers an interesting alternative to card schemes.”
Ahead of the curve, Monoova was one of the first payment initiators to be ready with PayTo in August 2022 and Wagepay is one of Monoova’s first clients to go live.
“For customers, creating a PayTo agreement is a fully digital experience that permits visibility and control from within your bank’s app or internet banking. With just a few clicks, you can pause, vary or cancel a payment agreement,” added Mr Westerlind Wigstrom.
Monoova’s API-driven payments platform allows tech-enabled businesses such as Wagepay to automate how they receive, manage and pay funds.
With Monoova, Wagepay ensures at least 99.9% of its customers receive their funds in less than a minute.
Wagepay has now processed over 1 million registration applications in real-time and is sustaining a compound annual growth rate of 260% per annum in top-line revenue.
“Wagepay is committed to destigmatising wage streaming. We’re giving everyday Australians real-time access to their wages and trying to improve their financial wellbeing. To that aim, we’ve launched dynamic pricing, bank transaction score tracker and credit score tracker features already. Moving to PayTo aligns with our customer care goals and enables us to offer a better service,” said Mr Chan.
