Solving the challenges of collecting one-off payments with open banking

One-off payments with fewer failures, greater visibility and better payment experiences. Purpose-built for the age of the internet and online purchases. Sounds like something from the future? Thanks to open banking, it’s now a reality.

Welcome to a new era of payments

Payments - the lifeblood of any business, can be complex. Depending on your business model and your customers, you likely offer several ways to pay to meet different purposes and different needs.

These payment methods bring with them differing rates of success, costs and customer experiences. Having visibility of how much your payments process is really costing you can be a challenge. And in today’s uncertain climate knowing and managing those costs is a must.

Collecting recurring payments is a staple of your business, but there are cases where you need to collect one-off payments. Whether you’re taking a first-time payment, sending an invoice, allowing a customer to top-up an account or charging for additional goods or services.

How are you collecting one-off payments?

Credit cards, bank transfers and Direct Debit were all created for a world before the internet and before online payments. They all have drawbacks when collecting one-off payments:

• Credit cards have expensive fees and high failure rates

• Bank transfers offer a clunky customer experience with lots of room for human error

• Direct Debit authorisation can sometimes be slow

How open banking changed the landscape

Using open banking, Instant Bank Pay, enables you to securely request a one-off payment from a customer, direct from your customer’s bank account to yours. Designed to complement Direct Debit and made for the age of the internet. 

Unlike its predecessors, Instant Bank Pay features real-time payment confirmations for you and your customers. With frictionless authorisation and no need to enter lengthy card details, you’ll create a payment experience to delight your customers. 

Real-time authorisation of payments means payments are more likely to be successful than cards and bank transfers. What does this mean for you? Time saved chasing one-off payments and late payments. And they’re typically 54% cheaper than online card transactions. That makes for a win-win.

How does Instant Bank Pay complement my recurring payments?

Customers no longer have to enter their card details twice, once for the one-off payment and once to set up a Direct Debit mandate. Instead, collect their details in one payment flow and they’ll authorise an instant payment with their bank. 

That makes one-off payments a win-win, win.

If you need to collect a one-off payment without setting up a mandate, you can simply send your customers an Instant Bank Pay link. You can even get creative with these pay links and serve them via QR codes like Gravity Active Entertainment:

“We have had customers say how quick and simple the new process is – they just scan our QR code, choose the service they want, and it takes them straight to the payment page. It's all done within two minutes.”

Chloe Blake, Assistant General Manager at Gravity Bluewater.