The emergence of a new breed of highly focused disruptors in the banking world is putting pressure on the ‘traditional’ banks to innovate, and offer customer-focused solutions in order to remain relevant.

In particular, the payments sector is very fast-evolving, presenting the traditional banks with a clear challenge. Digital technology, aided by open banking, has lowered barriers to market entry, creating a growing army of agile fintech competitors, together with aggressive moves into the space by major credit card brands.

Success lies in understanding the nature of the entire payments ecosystem, and developing a solution that enables it to work to the full advantage of all the players.

The banks have a challenge on their hands. But for corporate customers, as well as consumers and business users, the transformation in payments is all up-side.

Typically, large corporate customers could be issuing over a million invoices per quarter, at an average cost per invoice often exceeding €5 in labor and materials. In addition, current processes expose the corporates to a variety of other issues including: inefficient manual processes; customer error such as inputting incorrect payment details; delays in payment; time consuming reconciliation; and laborious archiving. All of this adds up to an unnecessary burden of cost and operational inefficiency.

90%

An effective single-click payment process has the potential to remove all these problems. Not only can corporations enjoy zero-error payments, they can reduce the cost of the process by up to ninety percent. At the same time, they will be offering customers the benefits of a vastly improved experience – in line with their expectations in an increasingly digital world. 

BearingPoint Bill. Enabling change to happen now

So far, attempts by major European banks to respond to the GAFAs have not been successful. This is largely because in ‘going it alone’ they have been unable to leverage the payments ecosystem. In contrast, at BearingPoint, we have developed a solution that acts as a facilitator for the ecosystem as a whole – linking the RTP infrastructure with the various protocols, platforms, and tech in play across the market, to enable single-click payment within the Eurozone. 

This solution is called BearingPoint Bill. It is designed to bring simplicity, clarity, and transparency to the payments process. It eliminates the time-consuming, resource-heavy invoicing process and reduces it down to a single step. Once the corporation prepares the invoice, it can be automatically sent to the customer’s banking app. Whereas currently the customer is faced with the problem of matching transactions, invoices, and payment details across a number of different locations in website portals, mobile apps and paper records – with all the associated time and margin for error – now they simply receive the RTP into their banking app, and they have the choice to ‘pay now’ or ‘pay later’. (If the customer chooses to pay later, they can select how long they wish to wait, and the system collects interest on the chosen time period). Payment can be instant, and there is zero risk of any error in payment amount, account details, or reference details. Similarly, reconciliation and archiving is completely automated, and the process is entirely transparent, so that the progress of the payment can be tracked throughout its journey, from the delivery of the invoice to the customer’s bank, through to payment and archive.

Win-win: single click payment, with benefits for everybody

For consumers, single-click payment brings simplicity to an often time-consuming and confusing task. For businesses, it massively streamlines their payments process, transforming the efficiency and quality of their accounting and cash management, and leaving them free to focus on adding value in their operations.     

The beginning of IoT in banking

Transformation in payments represents the first step toward true IoT in banking. For example, in modern fully connected manufacturing, machines already ‘talk’ to suppliers and automatically re-order components and consumables. It is an automated, machine-to-machine process. And in the future – the near future - invoicing and payment will happen in the same way. The digital ecosystems are forming, and the solutions such as BearingPoint Bill are already emerging – with the potential to bring huge gains in efficiency, accuracy, and cost reduction.  For now, the transformation of the ecosystem represents a massive opportunity for traditional banks to cement their position at the hub of the payments process, to bring a game-changing solution to their customers, and to be seen as true innovators.   

Key points

  • Traditional banks need innovation to remain relevant in the face of competition from GAFAs, fintech disruptors and credit card brands – one-click payment keeps them close to the heart of customers’ day-to-day financial lives.
  • BearingPoint Bill enables the payments and billing process to be combined via RTP, and makes one-click payment possible across the Eurozone – it’s part of the transformation of the entire payments ecosystem.
  • BearingPoint Bill benefits corporate customers by removing time-consuming processes, to dramatically improve efficiency, reduce cost, ensure transparency, and deliver a better customer experience.
  • End-user consumers and business customers enjoy the freedom of a simple payments process, saving time and hassle, and in line with their expectations of modern transactions.  
  • BearingPoint Bill heralds the arrival of full automation in the billing and payments process, and the arrival of IoT in banking

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