Mastercard is ramping up the Request to Pay service adoption by UK banks with cloud banking platform Temenos.
The new collaboration will see pre-composed solutions from Temenos combine with the market-certified Mastercard offerings to simplify the process of Request to Pay introduction for financial services.
Request to Pay is a service that allows for more flexibility when dealing with payments. A banking entity or a third-party fintech sends a curated digital request to a user’s mobile phone or desktop, giving them the option to either approve, defer, or reject the request.
Banks part of the Temenos Banking Cloud are instantly notified about approved transactions, which they can execute through a customer-preferred route such as the Faster Payments system, sending funds to billers in real-time.
Frode Asheim, EVP of Bill Pay at Mastercard, commented: “When paying bills, people value choice, control and flexibility with the added convenience of having all their bills in one place for a smooth day-to-day money management experience.
“Our innovative Request to Pay solution addresses these needs from consumers while at the same time providing additional benefits for billers and financial institutions. The participation of banks and other FI’s is essential to the success of Request to Pay, and by working with partners like Temenos, we can accelerate adoption in the market.”
Both companies are confident that Request to Pay has an ‘enormous potential’ of transforming the payments landscape.
In a release, the partners cited figures of the UK recurring bill payments market being estimated at more than six billion transactions.
In addition, UK Finance data points out that non-recurring ad-hoc bills such as car repairs and decorating services equate to around £30bn per year, a market which Temenos and Mastercard believe holds significant importance for the success of Request to Pay.
The technology is tailored in a way to place financial institutions at the centre of the bill-paying process, increasing customer engagement. Payers can benefit from up-to-date anti-money laundering (AML) protocols and a lesser chance of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, while billers can enjoy a fast transactional processing speed, guaranteed payment reconciliation, and reduction in some associated costs.
Mick Fennell, Business Line Director, Temenos Payments, said: “The race is now on to take advantage of Request to Pay driven market opportunities, where both billers and payers demand easy to use solutions embedded into the service offerings from their banks.
“Working with Mastercard, the Temenos Request to Pay solution will enable banks to quickly seize and develop these opportunities, building a competitive edge in fulfilling market demand for efficient, reliable, and cost-effective execution of the service.”
Adding more insight on the UK bill payments market, the State of Pay report by Mastercard highlights that one in 10 people find it difficult to remember payment deadlines, while one in five admitted to not feeling in full control of what goes out of their accounts.
