FinTech Automation joins Mastercard’s Engage partner network

US-based FinTech Automation has been approved as one of the first technology integration partners for Open Banking on Mastercard’s Engage partner network.

The partnership has been created to help companies build, launch and expand payment solutions. The Engage program has developed a network to give businesses access to technology partners who can build and deploy Open Banking solutions for payments and lending decisions at scale.

FinTech Automation (FTA) allows companies to build a digital financial hub with little or no code, and through Open Banking allows companies to establish direct consumer permissions to customers’ bank accounts. Through these consumer permissions, businesses can verify accounts for payments and withdrawals, check balances to reduce payment errors and cut fraud by verifying bank account ownership.

How does it work?

As FTA points out, their solutions are designed with security at the center and are meant to help meet consumers’ financial needs and allow choice. The companies want to create innovation that will increase financial inclusion and expand access to digital services across the globe.

FinTech Automation is a financial technology company dedicated to building a fully digital financial experience with little or no code. The FTA UniFi platform is the foundational component, the building blocks used by the company to help its customers innovate and grow their business.

The UniFi platform offers banking, payments, compliance and wealth management Software as-a-Service applications, which are integrated with 40+ partners to provide analytics, databases, Open Banking, application development tools, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics process automation.

For FinTech Automation, inclusion in the Engage partner network means fewer contracts, faster customer access, additional data security and increased overall flexibility in Mastercard’s network.

Mastercard in Colombia

Recently, Mastercard was in the eye of Colombia’s Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, as the South American country’s government was concerned about restrictive competition practices that could be carried out by Mastercard and Visa.

According to the complaint filed by one of these local agents, Visa and Mastercard would take actions to block, eliminate or make the model of local advance payment agents (LCA) more expensive in several Latin American countries such as Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia.

Visa and Mastercard would also have offered local banks that the transactions in the LCA system were processed under programs created by the same two companies, which would mean that the additional costs and fees would increase the value of the transactions between seven and ten times their real value.

Considering these actions, it is estimated that it will lead to an increase in fees in LCA model transactions that will vary between 700% and 1000%. This will consequently lead to an increase in the prices of goods and services offered by foreign electronic businesses. Businesses that do not follow the programs created by the two major franchises will be excluded.