Temenos partners with Mastercard to accelerate the adoption of Request to Pay

By Joy Dumasia

Temenos, the cloud banking platform, announced a collaboration with Mastercard, a leading global technology company in the payments industry, to help banks accelerate their introduction of Request to Pay services in the UK. This new initiative combines pre-composed solutions on the Temenos Banking Cloud with market certified Mastercard services, making it easier, faster and cheaper for financial institutions to introduce Request to Pay services. 

Request to Pay enables billers to dynamically request and manage the payment for a bill rather than simply sending an invoice. The payer receives a curated digital request through a banking or third-party FinTech application on their internet or mobile device. The payer can either partially or fully approve, defer, or even reject the request, enabling them to manage their bill payments better. However, if approved, a payment order will be submitted for execution within the bank via a preferred route, including through the Faster Payments system, allowing the Biller to receive funds in real-time. 

While Request to Pay has enormous potential to transform the payments landscape, it is still at an early phase of its rollout and reaches. With this collaboration, Temenos and Mastercard aim to accelerate market adoption, enabling complete end-to-end, real-time processing and secure and successful communication between buyers and payers. 

Request to Pay is attractive to financial institutions as it positions them at the center of the bill pay experience, helping to improve customer engagement and achieve competitive differentiation. For their biller clients, it helps them engage with payers more securely and effect the faster receipt of the payment, improve payment reconciliation and reduce arrears and associated costs. Furthermore, for both Financial Institutions and Payers, Request to Pay can also help reduce Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud due to the strict Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer processes in place across the ecosystem. 

Mastercard’s State of Pay report found one in ten people in the UK often forget to pay their bills resulting in late payments, and nearly one in five say they do not feel in control of the outgoings from their accounts. Request to Pay provides individuals with more options and flexibility to settle bills, whether for significant purchases, utility and telecoms bills, or items such as council tax payments. 

The estimated market potential for Request to Pay is vast. The UK recurring bill payments market alone is estimated at more than six billion transactions, amounting to hundreds of billions of pounds in value. There are also many ad-hoc bills for non-recurring items like car repairs and decorating services, which present an additional significant potential market for Request to Pay. UK Finance estimates these ad-hoc bills total approximately 30bn bills annually. Increased digital services and subscriptions have stimulated the growth of non-traditional recurring bills, increasing the expectation of volume growth in the upcoming years. 

Mick Fennell, Business Line Director, Temenos Payments, said:“The race is now on to take advantage of Request to Pay driven market opportunities, where both billers and payers demand easy to use solutions embedded into the service offerings from their banks. Working with Mastercard, the Temenos Request to Pay solution will enable banks to quickly seize and develop these opportunities, building a competitive edge in fulfilling market demand for efficient, reliable, and cost-effective execution of the service.” 

Frode Asheim, EVP, Bill Pay, Mastercard, added:“When paying bills, people value choice, control and flexibility with the added convenience of having all their bills in one place for a smooth day-to-day money management experience. Our innovative Request to Pay solution addresses these needs from consumers while at the same time providing additional benefits for billers and financial institutions. The participation of banks and other FI’s is essential to the success of Request to Pay, and by working with partners like Temenos, we can accelerate adoption in the market.”