Bottomline Technologies (NASDAQ:EPAY), a leading provider of payment, invoice, and digital banking solutions, today launched the Direct FPS Service, a new Faster Payment gateway solution that significantly lowers the barriers and costs to real-time payments for participants.
The Direct FPS Service is an addition to Bottomline’s existing suite of aggregated payments services providing access to Bacs, SWIFT, SEPA and a number of International clearing houses. Bottomline’s payments services aggregator becomes the ‘one stop shop’ of choice for Payment Service Providers (PSPs) looking to access multiple payment systems through a single solution.
Nearly eight years since its launch, the UK’s Faster Payments Service (FPS) remains Europe’s only 24/7 real-time payments system. With volumes for immediate payments growing at 20% per annum*, the rapidly expanding Faster Payments Scheme now averages over 110 million payments each month, and recently passed the significant milestone of five billion payments.
The new Direct FPS Service is a compelling solution under the New Access Model, designed to allow easier entry for banking participants to Faster Payments. As a proven payments technology provider, Bottomline Technologies delivers a real-time 24/7 Faster Payments access to customers, that lowers their participation costs and reduces the operational and compliance challenges often associated with building and running an ‘always available’ mission-critical payment service.
The Direct FPS Service is expected to have strong appeal to organisations wishing to offer a ‘Real-Time’ proposition to customers, new industry entrants and non-bank Payment Service Providers considering participation, as well as existing Faster Payments participants wishing to review and lower the costs of their current payments architecture.
“Faster Payments have become a necessity for today’s demanding 24x7 lifestyles. Consumers and businesses are increasingly using online and mobile to operate and compete in a digital world. This raises the expectations of a modern payments service, where security, simplicity and speed for users are all essential,” comments Ed Adshead-Grant, General Manager, Payments and Cash Management at Bottomline Technologies. “The Bottomline Direct Faster Payments Service ensures this combination is in place so access is significantly widened – something which can only benefit the demanding business user and their end consumers.”
Recent enhancements to the Faster Payment Service have broadened customer appeal in the corporate market. An increasing number of companies are streamlining their payment processes for a range of transaction types. This includes urgent but low-value payments, ‘just-in-time’ supplier payments, direct remittances, refunds (thus replacing cheques), cash management payments, weekly payroll runs and staff expenses. The single transaction value limit increase from £100,000 to £250,000 has added to the appeal of FPS with yet higher values planned in the near future.
“The higher Faster Payment transaction limit provides new options for the industry and our customers to route their more expensive and urgent payments through FPS. We anticipate a number of cost-conscious and forward looking players to take advantage of the Direct Faster Payments Service to remove unnecessary charges on their payments and to service their customers in a competitive way,” said Nigel Savory, Managing Director, Bottomline Technologies Global Business Solutions.