Australian bank selects London-based Pollinate for SME customers

By Edil Corneille

One of the big 4 Australian banks – National Australia Bank (NAB), is partnering with London-based Pollinate to transform its merchant acquiring offering for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). NAB’s implementation of Pollinate’s global cloud-based platform will help its SME customers better manage and grow their businesses.

The Pollinate platform brings these and other digital services to SMEs through a single platform. Working seamlessly with NAB’s existing merchant acquiring infrastructure, the Pollinate platform gives SMEs business insights, integrations with third-party applications (such as accountancy) and the ability to run digital loyalty programs.

Andrew Irvine, NAB’s Group Executive for Business & Private Banking said NAB was focused on delivering innovative products for small businesses to help them succeed; “Real-time data that delivers greater insights into what customers want, when and how they want it, can be transformative to a small business. Leveraging Pollinate’s platform, NAB will be able to give businesses the information they need to make decisions about their daily sales at their fingertips.”

By working with Pollinate, NAB is the second bank to join the global network, dedicated to bringing merchant services to businesses around the world. The platform was launched as Tyl by NatWest in the UK in September 2019. Pollinate’s model is to work with one leading bank in each geography, and is in advanced discussions in South Africa, Canada and other regions. NAB also joins NatWest, Mastercard, EFM Asset Management and Motive Partners as an investor in Pollinate, bringing the total amount raised to £70m.

Al Lukies CBE, Pollinate Founder and CEO enunciated, “Banks around the world have had a difficult decade, but they remain the only ones in the payment chain who can connect directly with both merchants and consumers. NAB is ideally placed to create a virtuous circle between the bank, its business customers and the communities they serve. We are honoured to be their partner of choice in Australia.”

Just like any other country, SMEs are said to be of vital importance to the Australian economy. SMEs in Australia are said to drive over half of the country’s economic output and employ two in every three Australian workers. One-third of Australian SMEs are said to bank with NAB. Central to this support, these businesses access the digital tools and payment solutions which historically were only available to larger businesses.