Betterpay partners OCBC to provide fully automated recurring collections
KUCHING: Southeast Asia-based Pay Direct Technology Sdn Bhd, through its payment automation platform Betterpay, has tied up with OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Bhd (OCBC Bank) to fulfil its goal of fully automating the recurring collections of all merchant partners.
Making this possible is OCBC Bank’s direct debit services, which allow merchants to collect recurring payments directly from a payer’s bank account at multiple banks with a single authorisation.
OCBC Bank was recently recognised as Malaysia International Cash Management Bank of the Year by Asia Banking and Finance and Best Cash Management Bank in Malaysia by Alpha Southeast Asia this year for its cash management services, of which direct debit is a part.
Betterpay expects the move to make recurring collections a lot more efficient for a projected one hundred more merchants by year-end, saving an anticipated 16 weeks per year per customer in terms of collection time.
Betterpay does the job by replacing conventional, often tedious, application processes by fully automating the entire recurring collection flow from enrollment up to customers’ payment and reconciliation.
According to Betterpay chief operating officer Danil Dahlan, by using the service, merchants can reduce late payments by their customers significantly – a pain point for most of them – improving cash flow while also lowering the operational cost of managing volume billings.
“Merchants are also able to customise their subscription plans to collect payments on a daily, weekly or monthly basis,” he said.
“This benefits the merchants as they are now able to experience faster onboarding and approval time. What guides our approach to innovation is the goal of improving the payments experience for our partners and merchants, with a clear focus on speed and efficiency.”
The recurring payment technology used by Betterpay draws from RESTful APIs, which require lower bandwidth, thus making it both scalable and flexible for merchants.
Betterpay’s payment capabilities allow banks and merchants to connect seamlessly either directly from their banking accounts or via card schemes.
Commenting on the collaboration, OCBC Bank managing director and head of transaction banking Chong Lee Ying said the tie-up is part of the bank’s commitment to helping customers in their digital transformation journey for sustainable growth.
“The collaboration with Betterpay builds on OCBC Bank’s solid track record of innovating with cutting-edge technology designed to meet consumer and business needs, especially within the emerging subscription economy,” Chong said.
“With this, our direct debit service can play a part in empowering merchants to fully customise and automate their collection experience from the point of enrollment up to payment collection with a high degree of success.