BPAY APIs enable FinTechs to provide innovative new customer services

Since launching the BPAY Group Developer Portal in October 2019, BPAY Group has had over 1500 organisations access its sandbox to test out their apps with BPAY APIs, and more than 70 companies from diverse industries use them in production.

The APIs provide a simple, efficient and cost-effective way for providers to connect with BPAY, and through doing so, expand usage of the popular payment method to new market segments.

The introduction of the APIs aligns with BPAY Group’s mission to collaboratively develop solutions that grow a competitive and robust financial services industry while meeting the needs of all customers.

“We are seeing an increasing number of FinTechs identifying and addressing consumer needs in innovative ways using our APIs, and our APIs are at the centre of many of the recent innovations coming out of the payments industry,” says Keith Brown, Chief Customer Officer at BPAY Group.

 

“This month for the first time we had over one million API calls, including our first using the new Payment Submission API. This is a testament to the fact that APIs continue to meet our customers’ needs.

 

“The APIs have allowed the companies to easily connect to BPAY without the costs and time associated with connecting through legacy systems. Since introducing BPAY APIs they have also reported less mistaken payments and lower overheads due to the APIs validating payments up front,” added Brown.

 

FinTech providers of BPAY Payments

 

BPAY Group has been a key supporter and player in the FinTech sector and stepped up to be a major sponsor of this year’s Intersekt festival. Among the innovative FinTech companies now providing BPAY Payments to their customers are Beem It, Super-Rewards, Groupee, Deferit and HelpPay.

 

Beem It started life as an app to let friends easily pay each other for shared expenses, like bills and holiday expenses. But the peer-to-peer payment app has ambitions to become a full-service digital wallet and introducing BPAY Payments is a key part of the plan. As a new BPAY member, Beem It’s use of the APIs has significantly reduced its effort to integrate BPAY, in comparison to batch-based payment processes. 

 

“Our BPAY integration, while mirroring the existing intuitive, simple nature of Beem It payments, has also addressed key customer concerns by incorporating the validation of biller codes and arrival date estimations for funds. This helps to reassure users about where their money is going and when it will get there,” said Patrick Darcy, Chief Growth Officer at Beem It.

 

Another FinTech to benefit from BPAY APIs is Super-Rewards, an online shopping platform that rewards consumers with superannuation contributions when they make purchases. Every month, Super-Rewards deposits their rewards into super accounts using BPAY APIs. Super funds also like the service, because it increases member engagement and increases their funds under management.

 

“We did our first run using the BPAY APIs in February and that process was 70% automated,” says Super-Rewards founder Pascale Helyar-Moray. “And we’re getting better and better every month that we make the payments. And with $100,000 of Super-Rewards now paid into our users’ super funds, we are reminded every day of how this could not have been possible without BPAY.”

 

As an early stage start up with limited resources, accepting BPAY Payments without the APIs would really not have been feasible for Groupee, which allows people to pool funds for shared expenses. Groupee used the APIs to connect in March 2021 and its total processed payments were up 840% compared to February.

 

Meanwhile Deferit, a 'Bill Pay Later' budgeting platform, pays bills on behalf of its customers who then pay that amount back over four instalments. It uses a BPAY API to improve payment validation, verify certain information on a bill to confirm the right amount that needs to be paid, and also reduces potential fraud by confirming a bill is valid and the biller is approved.

 

Another example of a company leveraging BPAY APIs is unique social fintech HelpPay, To be launched in October, HelpPay makes helping easier by guaranteeing that money paid to help people will only ever go to the provider of a bill. HelpPay’s patent pending app and platform turns every bill into its own socially sharable link and payment page. By leveraging BPAY’s APIs, HelpPay allows multiple payments and bill splitting, prevents overpayments, and creates digital trust by guaranteeing money paid only goes where it should.

 

“Asking for help is a really emotional moment for people,” says HelpPay Managing Director Andrew Ellett. “Our research[i] has found that 70% of Australians agree it’s part of our culture to help, but that 43% of people don’t help with bills because they don’t trust where their money will go. We’re solving that because our mission is to make helping easier. BPAY has increased our speed to market and been a true partner on our journey.”