Computop adds Token open banking account-to-account (A2A) payments to its Paygate platform.
The German payment service provider (PSP) is using Token’s open banking payments platform to launch and manage A2A payment propositions.
It has enabled alternative payments for the e-commerce merchants, white-label partners and resellers that use its payments service.
Traditional A2A payments involve money going from a payee’s bank to the service provider or the bank of the merchant, without the use of any intermediaries.
This type of payment includes push payments, like manual one-off bank transfers, and pull payments, like a direct debit for a subscription where the merchant withdraws money from the payee’s account.
A2A has been around for a while, and because of this, payments usually run on legacy banking rails built before the age of digital, incurring a degree of manual effort in the process.
What open banking has done for A2A is that it has allowed consumers to connect their accounts to the third-party platforms, apps or services they already use, beyond the parameters of their bank’s payment rails.
The appetite for this capability has picked up in recent years, as it delivers lower costs, faster conversions and a better consumer experience; elements that Computop was no doubt aware of when it sought out Token.
The company retains a significant market share in its native market, with its Paygate platform transferring payments totalling a value of $36billion last year.
In Germany alone, 85 per cent of consumers said they would likely use A2A payment methods in the future, meaning PSPs and merchants must act now to ready themselves for future demand.
“Computop already has 38 per cent of the market share in Germany and our global customer base is growing rapidly,” said the company’s CEO, Stephan Kück.
“At peak times, we are handling up to five million e-commerce transactions per day.”
Recognising open banking payments as an opportunity for merchants to reduce their dependence on cards, Todd Clyde, CEO of Token, cites the benefits of instant processing, “providing a clearer view of funds, eliminating the risk of chargebacks and [reaching] anyone with a bank account.”
