Unzer Taps Mastercard Technology to Launch Pay-by-Bank Tool

Payments firm Unzer has debuted a pay-by-bank tool in conjunction with Mastercard.

Unzer Direct Transfer, announced by the Berlin-based company Thursday (Feb. 27), is an open banking-powered method that lets consumers pay directly from bank accounts without needing a credit or debit card.

“With Unzer Direct Bank Transfer, we’ve launched a simple and trustworthy payment method based on Mastercard’s open banking infrastructure,” Timo Seifert, the company’s director of product, said in a news release.

“Merchants benefit from faster settlements and higher conversion rates while giving customers an easy and secure way to pay. It’s a smarter, more transparent payment method that benefits everyone.”

According to the release, the tool processes transactions via existing bank authentication systems, like biometric verification, ensuring a simpler and more efficient experience. For merchants, the pay-by-bank product addresses common obstacles like card limits and fraud risk while reducing the chances of transaction declines.

Unzer said it also plans to introduce a white-label option, in which the company “operates behind the scenes, allowing merchants to customize the checkout process to match their branding. This helps build trust and loyalty with customers, reduces cart abandonment, and creates a seamless shopping experience.”

The service was rolled out last month for merchants in Germany, with plans to bring it to other European markets later in the year.

Unzer and Mastercard formed their collaboration in November, with Mastercard becoming Unzer’s open banking partner in Germany, Austria and Denmark.

The aim, the companies said at the time, is to enhance open banking account-based payments and power eCommerce payments on Unzer’s payment gateways.

In other pay-by-bank news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about the payment method’s use in sports betting, where speedy payouts and frictionless deposits and transactions are critical to the user experience.

“It’s very frustrating for a player to deposit money [on one site] and then have it [stuck] there for three to five days because of processing times,” John Parsons, vice president of gaming at Trustly, said in an interview with PYMNTS.

As that report notes, consumers get same-day delivery of groceries and other items or stream an entire TV season in one sitting, making the notion of waiting days for a payout or a deposit to settle seem outdated. This is particularly true for sports bettors, whose entire experience is centered around the rush of the moment.

“As more consumers become comfortable with digital banking, pay-by-bank solutions are also gaining traction in the sports betting world,” PYMNTS wrote.