In 2026, user attention is an expensive commodity. Every field in a manual registration form is a potential exit point for a consumer. Yet neither payment nor consumer onboarding should be hard – yet sometimes they are, and when combined, they can be full of friction.
In this interview, Solution Consultant at Brite Payments, Fernando Jerez, explains how Brite Play, Brite’s A2A Payment and account verification product, collapses the ‘Register, Verify, and Pay’ hurdle into a single 20-second flow – eliminating churn and turning compliance into a competitive advantage.
What makes Brite Play so useful for merchants?
Fernando Jerez, Solution Consultant at Brite: The main benefit is how easy it is to register a consumer. This is especially relevant for regulated businesses, such as gaming or investment platforms, that have KYC (Know Your Customer) obligations.
It’s still commonplace to land on a website, fill out a long form with personal details, and then have the merchant verify that data. To prevent fraud, they’d ask for proof of address, an electrical bill, or a passport copy. It’s a time-consuming process where many users drop off, and it requires a lot of manual labour on the merchant’s part to verify everything.
With Brite Play, the merchant receives verified consumer data within the deposit flow. There are two main benefits:
- Instant Onboarding: The user initiates a payment. We collect the verified consumer data during that flow and share it with the merchant. The merchant can run their risk engine rules in the background – checking age or self-exclusion databases – while the payment is processing.
- Zero Churn: Compared to a typical payment, Brite Play only adds about 15–20 seconds to a normal Pay by Bank or Instant Payment process. By the time the payment is finished, the consumer is already registered, verified, and ready to play or invest. There’s no churn from users getting tired of the process.
Are there other benefits beyond the initial registration?
Fernando Jerez: Yes, especially for regulated markets (in which Brite serves, and), where money movement is involved. You need to “close the loop” to ensure that if a player wins or an investor doubles their money, the payout goes back to the same person who made the deposit. With Brite Play, we utilise unique identifiers for the user and their bank account that enable the merchant to make a payout with minimal integration.
Additionally, there is the login functionality on the merchant’s website. When a user returns the next day or weeks later, they don’t need to remember a password or email. They simply use their bank authentication app, or top-of-mind details, something they use daily and trust. It’s also much more secure; it’s easy for a bad actor to steal a password, but very difficult to sidestep a bank’s hardware-based authentication.
What are the most exciting use cases for Brite Play, currently and potentially?
Fernando Jerez: Currently, most of our use cases occur in industries with rigorous regulatory requirements for user verification. However, any regulated market that requires KYC for users is a perfect fit. I’m thinking specifically about investment platforms and trading. When the process involves both verifying the user and making a payment simultaneously, it makes life very easy for the merchant. Likewise, other industries, such as the nonprofit sector, e-commerce, or travel, may benefit from the same payment and onboarding flow.
How does Brite Play help reduce Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), specifically regarding the friction of KYC tools?
Fernando Jerez: We make the collection of KYC data almost unnoticeable. If you compare a regular payment with a Brite Play flow, they look almost identical. Plus, after the first deposit, we can detect the user early in subsequent flows and don’t need to trigger the KYC process again.
For the merchant, this is all handled programmatically. You don’t need a team in the background manually checking IDs. It eliminates manual data-entry errors on the user side and automates the entire backend profile creation process.
How does Brite Play’s UI appeal to a younger demographic (Gen Z) who might abandon a brand over a traditional registration form?
Fernando Jerez: I’m 43, and even to me, credit cards feel outdated. You have to enter the number, expiry date, and CCV, and then you still usually have to approve a notification on your phone. It’s the worst of both worlds.
Gen Z does everything on mobile. Brite Play is fully integrated into the device. You don’t need to find your wallet or remember a card number. Often, younger people today are more comfortable with short burst experiences; if a process takes more than a few seconds or requires uploading files, they will abandon it. Brite Play provides that “instant” experience they expect.
How does Brite Play differentiate itself now that “Instant” (like SEPA Instant) is becoming the new baseline?
Fernando Jerez: Even if SEPA Instant settles a payment in 10 seconds, you still need the infrastructure to communicate and settle payment reliably to the merchant. Brite acts as a “middleman” with a full risk engine. We ensure the payment isn’t linked to sanctioned individuals or illegal behaviour before it ever reaches the merchant.
This is something pure payment initiation service (PIS) providers cannot do as easily, and a reason why the Brite Instant Payment Network, Brite IPN, is extremely important.
We use “smart routing” to find the best path for the money to travel. Our system checks in real time whether the funds have arrived and communicates that to the merchant immediately. Injecting the KYC element into that “instant” flow only adds about 15–20 seconds, which is a negligible trade-off for being fully onboarded. Indeed, given that the typical onboarding time ranges from 10 minutes to 24 hours, this is an especially swift process that benefits both the consumer and the merchant.
Could Brite Play be used as an identity tool for non-gaming marketplaces, like hotel booking?
Fernando Jerez: That’s a great use case. Take Airbnb, or any other short-term rental company, for example: they might not verify you in depth until you arrive. But in places like Spain, regulations now require hosts to verify the identity of tenants and report it to a local registry.
Brite Play could streamline that. You make the payment for the rental and, at the same time, the merchant gets the verified name, ID number, and address. It removes the friction of showing IDs or filling out forms upon arrival. It applies to any online business that needs to know exactly who is on the other side of the screen.
Is the payment experience with Brite significantly different for a returning user?
Fernando Jerez: It’s much faster. For a returning user, we already know the bank account. They basically just confirm the account and authorise the payment in their bank app. It’s essentially a “one-click” experience. This is vital for industries like trading, where a user might make multiple deposits in a single day. You don’t want them to have to repeat the same, annoying steps every time.
Is Brite Play effectively eliminating registration forms as we know them?
Fernando Jerez: Potentially. We see merchants specifically integrating Brite Play to reduce the need for cumbersome manual forms. In 2026, people expect things to be automated. If there’s a loading spinner or a manual data field, it can feel unbearable.
Any business that requires manual document verification (taking 1–3 days) will find it hard to compete with a competitor that can onboard a user in 20 seconds.
However, the registration form isn’t going anywhere just yet. Merchants will always need information from consumers. But products like Play significantly improve the speed at which this data can be obtained.
Conclusion
If you would like to find out more about Brite products, please visit our Brite for Business pages to find out more information. Or if you would like to talk to our payment experts directly about combining payment and onboarding, then get in touch or book a demo or Brite Play today.
