CONNECTING THE DOTS

PayTo: Connecting the Merchant & Consumer Dots

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PayTo is a once-in-a-generation payments game-changer. We know this because we're kind of obsessed with it. Zepto's direct connection to Australia's real-time payment rails for PayTo is your connection to a better way to pay.

We can clearly see the improvements and advantages that PayTo will bring to the table for both merchants and their customers, and while we have a good handle on what PayTo is, what’s under the hood, what it does and how it works, we take nothing for granted. We succeed only when our customers succeed. We believe we are an extension of them, guiding the way for their goals to be realised.

The only way to do that, is to truly understand what their businesses need, what their customers want, and then create the solutions framed by those points of intersection.

So, to garner a greater understanding of how merchants perceive PayTo’s benefits and barriers, Zepto’s Product Innovation team has conducted roundtable workshops with merchant partners of different sizes from a range of key industries to help us co-design the best outcomes and conceptualise how our PayTo offerings should be delivered. 

To take things a step further, we have also concluded the first round of consumer research with a cohort of more than 300 participants to better understand consumers’ awareness of–and appetite for–new payment methods and open banking. We are drilling deep into the features and flexibility of PayTo to ensure merchants are offering exactly what consumers want, and the features that will drive engagement and deepen trust between both parties. 

Our research program is ongoing, but early reporting has surfaced some extremely useful insights.

We’ll be sharing some of that research in the future but, for now, here are some top-level snapshots:

    • Fewer than 1% of consumer participants were aware of PayTo.
    • 96% were, however, somewhat or very open to new payment methods.
    • Specifically, once its features and benefits were described to them, the majority of participants noted they would be somewhat or very likely to use PayTo if it was offered as a payment method.

Which is a good thing, because when we consulted with our merchant customers, a prime concern was the likely consumer uptake of PayTo early on.

Our take on that? 

Disrupting the payment behaviour of consumers will be a challenge and will require a visible and consumer-centric awareness campaign to build trust and ensure uptake.

Our merchant partners also identified increased speed of transactions, and heightened security as major positives. This was borne out when we asked them to vote on their favourite PayTo benefits, and both took up the lion’s share of conversation during the roundtable session.

They were particularly enthused by the prospect of a reduction in fraud with PayTo through a closer and more clear data relationship with their customers, when compared with traditional bank direct debit and card networks. 

And notable quotes from the merchant roundtables about PayTo?

For me it screams opportunity for great UX and great product features.

If we can nail the UX first-time for customers, we’ll have an amazing new payment method

It's a no-brainer that we would move everything to PayTo as a front-and-centre solution.

I see this as eventually the primary solution because it mirrors card functionality, but it’s not using old rails, we gain data, and fraud risk is super low.

PayTo will bring together the very best elements of all current payment methods in a single, flexible, multi-use case payment solution. Integrate now with Zepto and you’ll be PayTo-ready the moment it switches on without any additional dev work required. If you choose to wait, porting your existing traditional direct debits to PayTo will be a breeze.

Either way, PayTo will transform your customer experience, and you’ll enjoy a freer, faster flow of funds.

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