Two start-ups already positioned for open banking

Qippay founder Ashley Lake-Johns says the problems his business is addressing is high transaction fees and time delays associated with credit cards, which can sometimes destroy businesses.

“We looked for a solution that could solve that and that's when we stumbled across open banking,” Lake-Johns says.

It joined the API Council which has been collaborating with Payments NZ to establish standards, or application processing interfaces, to be used to facilitate open banking.

Lake-Johns says his company's payments solution is “more user friendly, more accessible, more affordable and more secure than traditional card payments” for merchants.

Qippay customers have multiple ways of accessing its service, including through Xero accounting software, and the company has just signed an agreement with Bank of New Zealand, the first bank to go live with the API designed to facilitate customers using third party providers for payments.

Lake-Johns says agreement with Westpac and ANZ Bank New Zealand will be “the next cab off the rank.”

Blinkpay is offering a bills paying service that allows a customer to keep track of all their bills and direct debits in one place and which “is outstandingly cheaper and faster than other payment methods available to date,” says chief executive Adrian Smith.

While its service isn't exclusive to Maori, “our emphasis is we're a kaupapa business, driven by Maori values,” Smith says.

“We have a different world view in how we hold ourselves accountable in terms of those values.”

While other organisations tend to be transactional, Blinkpay focuses on building connections and relationships with its customers, he says.

Like Qippay, Blinkpay is already integrated with Xero and has an agreement with BNZ with others with ASB Bank and ANZ currently in progress. It already had an agreement with Westpac “before opening banking became a thing.”

Both businesses say the setting of a deadline with the major banks gave them a definite timeline and much-needed certainty.

The other API will facilitate customers authorising third party providers to access their account information, backed my legislation currently before parliament giving customers ownership of their own data.