With the coronavirus pandemic highlighting society’s declining use of cash, fintech and digital payments company Novatti Group (ASX: NOV) has launched a new configurable platform for businesses to access world-leading Visa issuing solutions without the intensive investment required to build and launch from scratch.

The Digital Payments Accelerator offers startups, businesses of all sizes and Government agencies with an off-the-shelf configurable platform to issue and manage Visa cards using Novatti’s service, being a Visa Principal Issuer and Australian Financial Services Licenses holder for non-cash payments.

“We’ve seen the rise of the ‘bank in a box’ and banking as a service, which is revolutionising that sector by providing open access to infrastructure previously reserved for the big end of town,” said Novatti Managing Director, Peter Cook.

“Novatti’s Digital Payments Accelerator equally revolutionises the payments sector by providing everyone, from startups to small businesses, and large enterprises to government, with access to Visa’s world-class payments platform and card issuing facilities at an affordable cost.

“This will help businesses meet the rapid increase in consumer demand for digital payments, which we strongly believe will accelerate post-COVID-19.”

Through testing of the service and its practical application in real-world situations, Novatti developed various apps within the API driven platform where by example, Visa cards could be issued for the purpose of controlled welfare payments to people in urgent need of assistance. As such, Government agencies would be able to track spending and use of welfare payments to ensure funds were being spent appropriately while not allowing cash withdrawals, use on gambling websites or at liquor stores.

Another real-world application used is for the rapid payment of fleets of drivers who are working a mixture of the gig economy and part-time shifts.

Core to the platform is the sandbox environment where Novatti developers will work with business customers to customise their payments ideas while utilising Novatti’s digital payments and regulatory technology to ensure smooth transactions and reconciliations.

Revenues payable to Novatti will depend on the scale of each individual payments app and number of Visa cards issued where Novatti can issue up to 2,500 custom-branded Visa cards. Because the cards are pre-paid, there is no credit risk held by Novatti which receives program development fees and ongoing processing fees based on transaction volumes.

In 2019, consumers had already left cash behind, with card payments representing 63% of consumer payments compared to cash at 27%.  Post-COVID-19, this shift is only expected to accelerate.

The launch of Novatti’s new Digital Payments Accelerator is just one of Novatti’s planned growth initiatives since raising $10.2m in July with the fintech company having earlier in the month also launched a new billing automation app on the Salesforce Exchange. In collaboration with Rent.com.au (ASX: RNT), Novatti is also expecting to launch their new RentPay app before the end of the year as a one-stop-shop for tenants, agents and landlords.

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