Fintech Zai has teamed with payment service provider Cuscal to deliver its PayTo solution and improve its PayID offering, both initiatives of the New Payments Platform Australia . PayTo enables businesses to initiate real-time payments from their customers’ bank accounts.

Based on the information detailed in the announcement, the solution helps ensure increasingly efficient, fast, and simplified payments for businesses and consumers particularly when compared to traditional direct debit payments, while simultaneously providing funds assurance. Zai aims to help businesses to plug into and leverage the PayTo service in a simplified manner. Zai, Cuscal collaboration details and what PayTo means for real-time payments As per the press release, Zai was amongst the first in Australia to activate within the real-time payment solutions space and has waived fees for businesses that choose to sign up for its PayTo solution for the initial 12 months period.

The collaboration with Cuscal enables Zai to provide a consistent, managed payment service with control over the end-to-end process, which is believed to place the company in a stronger position for adding value to its customers. Furthermore, following this partnership, payments can be settled and cleared within one ecosystem, which could be different for direct integrations into the New Payments Platform (NPP) for PayTo. Additionally, this allows Zai to focus on scaling its solution by bettering its functionality and offering an improved customer experience.

Commenting on the announcement, Jose Barroso, Country Manager ANZ, Zai stated that the collaboration is key in the company’s strategy of delivering a focused, ‘excellent’ experience to customers ahead of the complete rollout deadline of April 2023 of PayTo within Australia. Zai users are set to be offered service and support from Zai in conjunction with integration and understanding of services such as PayTo and PayID, provided by Cuscal. Nathan Churchward, Domain Lead Payments, Cuscal added that the company is looking forward to enabling Zai’s access to the NPP for both PayTo and PayID and supporting both current and future payment options and flows through means of a single solution.

Zai, Cuscal strategy and offering Zai provides an API-powered platform that aims to simplify the creation and management of end-to-end payment flows, looking to help businesses with managing multiple complex workflows and moving funds. The platform applies real-time payment expertise to a micro-service architecture so as to enable authentication, liquidity, payment, and settlement. Having been certified by NPPA as an Initiating Participant and Payer Participant for PayTo, Cuscal provides a fully compliant NPP solution that delivers all features of the NPP, together with access to all the flows and options of NPP messaging and services, aiming to optimise PayTo and real-time payment experience for financial institutions and payment services providers.

From 2018 onward, the company enabled over 70 NPP implementations, helping an increased number of organisations with access to the NPP. .