To achieve this, PPI AG is developing the request-to-pay platform PAYCY for the European financial industry. It enables a seamless link between invoicing and payment. DZ BANK will offer the RTP service to its customers and the cooperative banks and will not only be the first users, but will actively participate in the development and pilot it to market maturity. Payment requests can be created in real time from an invoice. The process is based on the Europe-wide RTP approach.

Reducing manual efforts

Corporate customers of banks can send and receive invoices in the simplest way in a format of their choice. Payment recipients are shown clearly which invoices have already been paid; for debtors, invoices are permanently visible in their online account. All invoice data management at PAYCY is carried out in accordance with the data and payment transaction guidelines of the euro area. Manual efforts in invoicing can be significantly reduced, while transparency and convenience of the payment can be considerably increased. PAYCY is an important milestone for the digital transformation and the efficient implementation of payments processes. For financial institutions, the new service offers the opportunity to become more prominent again in everyday payments and to offer additional services.

The potential behind the PAYCY white-label platform is enormous - after all, over 32 billion bills are exchanged every year in Germany alone, 50 per cent of which are addressed to private customers. Both corporate and private customers will benefit from digital simplification, and applications at the POS or in e-commerce are also planned. The European go-live is planned for 2023.

Offering completely new services

"Request to Pay builds the bridge between invoicing and payment and enables us as a bank to offer our customers completely new services," says Thomas Ullrich, the DZ BANK board member responsible for transaction banking. The PAYCY platform is open to all market participants and offers financial institutions clear advantages in terms of time-to-market and market penetration.

"The bank-neutral PAYCY platform will change the payments industry. Many market participants are watching the current development very closely. Everyone agrees that Request to Pay represents a great opportunity for banks to establish new business centred around the account. What is missing are central and neutral infrastructure offers to keep investments manageable and to leverage synergies. With PAYCY, we are closing this gap," explains Dr Thorsten Völkel, CEO of PPI AG and responsible for its payments division.