Zepto CEO Chris Jewell
Woolworths’ payments division Wpay has commissioned payments services company Zepto to work with it on the development of a PayTo service.
The partners said in a statement that PayTo would allow Woolworths to develop account-to-account payments.
“The new solution will enable real-time bank account verification, as well as real-time payment validation, processing, settlement and reconciliation,” the partners said.
Wpay managing director Paul Monnington said: “We are seeing an increased appetite from customers for real-time payments, which provide greater speed and convenience compared with traditional payment methods.”
PayTo was developed by NPP Australia, a subsidiary of Australian Payments Plus, as an up-to-date and more user-friendly version of consumer direct debits. AP+ sees the real-time mandate payment service eventually playing a role in a range of corporate payments as well.
AP+ has said consumers will have a high level of visibility and control over their payment arrangements, with the ability to view, authorise, pause or cancel payment agreements.
The industry expects that PayTo will do more than replace direct debits in the consumer payments market. It could be used for e-commerce transactions, with payments from account to account bypassing the use of debit or credit cards.
This is one direction Woolworths is headed with PayTo. Bypassing the card networks would cut a level of transaction fees out of its payment costs.
Zepto is approved to connect directly to the New Payment Platform as a “connected institution”. The only other connected institutions are ADIs and Zepto’s unique status in that regard was important in winning the Wpay business.
Zepto chief executive Chris Jewel said: “PayTo will revolutionise the way businesses approach payments, while also mitigating the risks of missed payments and fraud.”
Jewell said another use case, apart from e-commerce, will be in the way Woolworths manages its B2B arrangements in its supply chain.