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Brite Payments Wins ‘Payments System of the Year’ at 2023 Retail Systems Awards
Stockholm – 3 July, 2023 – Brite Payments, one of Sweden’s fastest growing fintechs and a leader in instant bank payments, received top honors in the ‘Payments System of the Year’ category at the recent Retail Systems Awards in London. The annual awards celebrate excellence in the retail sector, with a strong focus on technology innovation. Brite’s solution, which leverages open banking technology to process account-to-account (A2A) payments in real-time between consumers and online merchants, was also a finalist in the Alternative Payments Solution category. “We are honoured to receive this recognition from the Retail Systems Awards, which highlights the benefits that our instant A2A payments bring to merchants,” said Philippe Rousseau, Head of Benelux, Brite Payments. “Retail payments continue to suffer from inefficiencies that cost businesses time and money – with our approach to open banking-based instant payments, we make it possible for merchants to securely receive and send money in seconds, while also achieving operational cost-savings.” Open banking payments picking up speed Open banking payments are gaining traction across Europe as businesses in a growing number of sectors recognise the benefits from an operational and cost perspective, while valuing the seamless payments experience they offer end users. Brite Instant Payments leverages direct connections to bank APIs to let consumers pay instantly from their bank using only top-of-mind information. With no need for registration, app downloads, or additional passwords, Brite reduces checkout friction and eliminates redirects. “Open banking payments have enormous untapped potential, but merchants need easy-to-integrate products that deliver real and immediate value. We have been building our next-generation proprietary payments system since Brite was founded in 2019, and this recognition from Retail Systems validates our approach as well as the versatility of our solution,” concluded Rousseau. For more information about Brite, please visit: britepayments.com ABOUT BRITE Brite Payments is a second-generation fintech based in Stockholm. The instant payments provider leverages open banking technology to process account-to-account (A2A) payments in real-time between consumers and online merchants. With Brite, no signup or credit card details are required as consumers authenticate themselves with top-of-mind details using their bank’s usual identification method. The company currently operates across 24 markets in Europe and is connected to more than 3,800 banks within the EU.
The Emerging Role of Instant Payments in Lending | Brite Payments
Europe has long been the home to innovations in financial services. Today’s banking model can easily be traced back to medieval Italy. However, a lot has changed since then. Instant loan payout solutions and mobile apps are now critical drivers of modern consumer lending. Consumer lending firms need to meet customers’ expectations for quick and easy access to financial services. Read on to learn how to adopt innovative consumer lending solutions that deliver instant loan payouts — without risking data security or compliance. A brief history of instant payouts across Europe SEPA Credit Transfers were introduced in 2008 and made moving money around the EU faster. SEPA Instant Credit Transfers took this premise further in 2017. Each advancement has helped the consumer lending industry to grow by improving customers’ access to credit. Yet, consumers still don’t have reliable access to instant loan payments. For example, SEPA Instant Credit Transfers accounted for less than 14% of all SEPA payments as of late 2022. Moreover, the instant payments landscape is highly fractured. Financial services firms need to navigate two sub-programmes within the SEPA Instant scheme alone. The first is the RT1 from EBA Clearing (a banking consortium), while the second is TIPS, run by the European Central Bank. Meanwhile, the UK also has its own system, called Faster Payments. Unfortunately, each has different processing times, transaction limits, and payment initiation methods. In addition, adoption rates vary wildly. For instance, while 96% of Spanish payment service providers (PSPs) offer RT1 payments, this figure drops to just 8% in Ireland. Challenges in consumer lending For borrowers Borrowers have a variety of concerns when evaluating different loan products. These include the interest rate and repayment terms they’ll receive and the application process they’ll need to navigate. Consumers also wonder about how quickly they’ll receive their funds, the lender’s customer service quality, and any hidden fees. Additionally, borrowers may have concerns about identity theft and will seek out lenders that prioritise data security. Overall, consumers just want to ensure they’re getting the best deal possible via a reputable lender. As a result, consumers increasingly opt for lenders that offer online or mobile applications and instant loan payouts. This allows them to save time during the application process and use their new funds more effectively. For these reasons, the Europe digital lending market is expected to quadruple to roughly €4.5 billion by 2029 as lenders increasingly turn to digital solutions. For lenders By contrast, lenders’ primary concerns involve assessing the borrowers’ affordability and mitigating risk. Otherwise, lenders can face defaults; which can prove highly damaging if not managed well. Effective hedging has been particularly important in recent months, as EU consumer loan defaults are expected to rise. However, Salesforce surveys show that more than 70% of customers expect companies to understand and anticipate their needs. So, lenders must look more long term and proactively address consumers’ rising expectations for flexible financial services. These include everything from enhanced self-service capabilities to omnichannel customer service. Unfortunately, the complex European regulatory landscape can make meeting these expectations extremely difficult. To make things worse, legacy digital infrastructure can also present challenges. How lenders can deliver instant loan payouts and outcomes at scale It’s clear that consumer lending firms need to balance speed, security and convenience throughout the customer journey. By adopting a modular approach and working with reliable third parties, lenders can enhance their decision engine and deliver fast, secure, instant payouts at the same time. For example, Brite is a highly experienced third-party solutions provider. Brite’s all-in-one API gives access to a range of powerful tools to modernise the consumer lending business and easily facilitate instant loan payouts. For example, you can use Brite Instant Payouts to instantly transfer funds across 24 European markets. In turn, you can attract and convert more customers with timely access to credit products. The Brite API also lets customers authenticate with their bank details in just a few taps, too. This not only saves time during the application process but also prevents manual input errors by automatically fetching customer data. What’s more, Brite offers Customer Data Solutions. Using the same Brite API, you can access a customer’s bank details (with their permission) and use this data to provide tailored loan offers by assessing customers’ financial health directly. All this means that Brite can support the entire customer lending lifecycle, from start to finish. Best of all, Brite’s bank-level security measures mean there’s less risk of fraud. For example, Brite uses the highest standard of data encryption available, allowing you to make lending decisions more confidently. Interested in learning more? We go into more detail about why lenders should adopt instant payout solutions in a dedicated article. Offer instant loan payouts, and more, with Brite With consumers looking for ways to fit financial services around their lives, instant loan payouts are a no-brainer. Once approved, lenders can wow customers and build lasting relationships by providing quicker and easier access to their funds. However, the instant payout landscape across Europe is fractured. Competing schemes and complex regulations mean business leaders need reliable ways to improve their services. Enter third-party solution providers, like BriteBy partnering with Brite, you get access to a powerful API that can enhance every stage of your consumer lending services. You gain access to a fully compliant, highly secure Instant Payouts network and data solutions that can help you deliver bespoke loan offers.
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Taking Open Banking Payments To The Next Level With the Brite Instant Payments Network
Bo Liljefors, Chief Product Officer Taking Open Banking Payments To The Next Level With the Brite Instant Payments Network Consumers have quickly become accustomed to instant everything. High-quality music streaming in milliseconds. Hollywood blockbusters at the click of a button. And we can dial in movie-quality video calls with friends and family across the planet within a few seconds. In this real-time world of instant gratification, it is understandably difficult for consumers to grasp why payments can still take hours – or even days. Anyone working in payments will tell you “it’s not that simple” but it doesn’t change the fact that consumer expectations have evolved. And the businesses that can best cater to these changing expectations will have a competitive advantage and stand to capture a bigger share of the market. The Instant Payments Opportunity This has created a huge instant payments opportunity, but today, Europe’s real-time payments landscape remains fragmented. SEPA Instant coverage varies from country to country, while countries outside the Eurozone currency union have their own schemes. There have been some notable efforts to overcome this fragmentation – the most recent example being P27 Nordic Payments, which has now run aground. The European Commission’s proposed instant payments mandate is a step in the right direction, but it’s no “silver bullet” for the inefficiencies that hold back instant payments. Also, it doesn’t help merchants and businesses that are looking for a way to address their payment pain points today. However, we believe that open banking can play an important role in giving merchants a solution in the here and now. This is why we have developed Brite Instant Payments Network (Brite IPN) as the technological backbone of our open banking-based instant payments and payouts. It is a purpose-built proprietary network that connects banks with businesses and consumers, enabling true “out of the box” instant bank payments. Brite’s mission has always been to offer fast, secure, and convenient payments. We took an open banking-first approach, aware of the fact that while a number of providers can facilitate payments based on open banking rails, there were few that gave businesses a complete solution. The Benefits of Brite IPN Brite IPN is a significant step forward in our mission, and it is the engine that drives our instant bank payments. It offers merchants significant advantages over open banking PIS (Payment Initiation Service) solutions that initiate bank payments on behalf of consumers but are not part of the flow of funds. Brite IPN is also supported by our merchant FX capabilities, which enables merchants to fund or request settlement in a currency of their choice. From a merchant’s perspective, this further builds on the key benefits of Brite; 24/7/365 instant payment processing, automated reconciliation and reporting, smart routing to optimise speed and efficiency, and end-to-end payment visibility. We believe that Brite IPN can play an important role in addressing the fragmentation that is holding back instant bank payments adoption in Europe. Although regulation (including the forthcoming PSD3) has a critical role to play, in an instant everything world, we’re excited to take open banking payments to the next level with Brite IPN and give businesses a way to keep their customers happy today.
