Tazapay Adds Open Banking With Volt’s Help

Singapore’s Tazapay has teamed with Volt to add open banking to its payments offerings.

The collaboration, announced in a Tuesday (Feb. 28) news release, will let Tazapay customers expand their sales in the U.K. and Europe, Volt said, especially merchants based in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

“This partnership demonstrates the global acceleration of real-time payments across many sectors – a complement to the acceleration of online business processes and an obvious fit for businesses now operating in a digital-first economy,” Volt Chief Revenue Officer Matt Komorowski said in the release.

Volt says its real-time reconciliation capabilities enable businesses to track payments and provide insight into the “payment value chain.” In addition, Tazapay will also get access to Volt’s fraud prevention solution to identify and block suspicious payments.

The release also notes that the partnership is happening as open banking continues to grow in popularity. The U.K. marked a milestone on this front last month, as more than a million British customers used open banking for the first time.

The addition of 1.2 million first-time users during the month brought the number of U.K. consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) using open banking above the landmark figure of 7 million for the first time, Open Banking Limited (OBL) reported on Feb. 21.

“It is significant that 1.2 million of these are first-time users,” OBL CEO Henk Van Hulle said in a news release. “From access to cost-effective credit, building a regular savings habit or making more informed financial decisions — open banking is delivering the means for our citizens to improve their financial wellbeing.”

As PYMNTS noted earlier this month, open banking is helping Europe’s SMBs in a number of ways, including making it easier for businesses to get paid instantly.

“Payment links have emerged as one of open banking’s most useful products for SMBs because they’re as easy to set up as they are to pay,” PYMNTS wrote. “Businesses just need to send a link or QR code with their invoices and their clients can instantly make payment without the need to enter any details.”

A growing number of SMB-focused FinTechs offer this technology to their customers, like German startup Denario has integrated open banking-powered payment links into its platform for SMBs.

As company Co-founder Philipp Adrian Pohlmann said in a 2022 interview, Denario’s goal is to replicate the speed and convenience of consumer payments for the business world by helping SMBs automate the extra steps involved, “from receiving, paying, processing, reconciling, and reporting the payment to reclaiming some of the VAT [value added tax].”