Paymark Open for business

Open for business
Auckland, 1 March, 2019

Paymark is delighted to welcome the first API standards for open banking and says this will be the start of an industry-wide revolution.

Open APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, allows organisations such as developers, to build new applications that connect painlessly with other services, such as banking systems, says Paymark’s Darren Hopper, Head of Digital Payments.

“With a set of API standards it will become easier for organisations including start-ups to gain access to otherwise off limits data including financial information. It also paves the way for innovations across the payment landscape” says Darren.

“Paymark has already paved the way by launching one of many new payment services via its own API initiative “OPEN” or the Open Payments Enabled network. Online EFTPOS in an open banking service. This means banks can extend the capability of their existing online banking apps into the payments world and allow customers to use their own money to buy products and services online”.

Paymark is New Zealand’s leading electronic payments company and is responsible for processing the bulk of the country’s EFTPOS transactions. As customers move to shopping online, the demand for better and more secure access to their own money grows, says Darren.

Online EFTPOS will soon be available to over 500,000 Kiwis through partnerships with New Zealand banks.

“Customers tell us they want to buy things online without having to pay credit card companies for the privilege. As online shopping becomes more mobile we realised customers don’t want to sit there typing in account numbers and so built Online EFTPOS to connect the banks’ mobile apps with our payment network using open APIs.”

The result is a service that allows customers to securely and quickly use their own money to buy products and services online at the click of a button.

“No more trying to type in strings of numbers, no more concern about security or credit card fees, just punch in your mobile phone number and purchase items using your own money directly from your bank account”

Open APIs mean this is just the beginning and as New Zealand’s original fintech start-up, Ross says Paymark is very excited by the possibilities today’s announcement represents.

“We want to see all those crazy ideas that developers have brought to life. We want to see diners in restaurants able to pay their share of the bill to each other directly using their mobile phones, or tradies immediately invoice customers who can in turn pay them directly without having to type in strings of account numbers. All this and so much more is possible if we all openly connect.”

Payments New Zealand has today launched two core payments-related standards – one for payment initiation and one for account information. These two standards are important building blocks that will allow developers to write code to ask basic questions of the banking and payments sector on behalf of customers.

“Customers want speed and efficiency from their fintech but they also want security and peace of mind. Today the industry is at the start of that journey and we’re delighted to see the games begin. Paymark saw the benefits of Open Banking and creating mobile centric API’s that allow greater innovation in this space. This has positioned Paymark at the forefront of the Open Banking revolution and first to market with a commercial solution that is reducing fees to merchants and creating payment choice with the customer experience at the centre

ENDS

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