What is behind the rise in account-to-account (A2A) payments?

How has progress been, and what kind of merchants are you bringing with you?

Since launching in 2020, we’ve experienced strong, growing demand for our instant payment solutions – and we’re finding that this is driven by consumer preferences for speed, ease of use and convenience, which merchants strive to meet.

We have found that there are sectors where payment speed and security are one of the greatest, or the greatest consideration for consumers. This is where we currently find the strongest use of our products, allowing sellers to respond to this need and win over their competitors. Some of the sectors with the most concentrated demand are currently financial services (especially lending or financial services apps), marketplace business models, insurance and the gig economy.

There is a growing selection of payment options available at checkout. How do account-to-account payments benefit consumers?

For the customer, paying from account to account makes the transaction process significantly more convenient, especially on mobile. Convenience is created by the nature of the solution where all you need is a bank account and users don’t need to fill out cumbersome registration forms or downloads.

In addition, there is no requirement to create multiple passwords, all you need is the top-of-mind information you will use to log into your banking app. In isolation, the convenience may seem small, but we know that many people trade on many different platforms on a regular basis, and the time savings and ease become significant.

How about for a merchant – what does it give them?

Account-to-account payments also have many advantages for merchants. In particular, the costs of payment are both lower and more predictable, especially compared to card payments and the associated complicated pricing models based on card mix. Furthermore, it is easy to integrate, and facilitates an improved cash flow, which is a decisive factor in the selection process.

Another significant benefit for merchants is how A2A payment makes their offering more engaging for consumers compared to other providers. The security and convenience that this payment method ensures is a very competitive advantage in the market.

Where are you currently active and where can we expect to see Brite Payments in the future?

Our market rollout began in 2020, and we first launched Brite Payments in Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. We chose these markets because their populations had an existing strong preference for account-to-account payments, so we were confident that consumers would easily understand our proposition and how we differentiate ourselves from providers they may be familiar with.

Following the strong positive response, we have continued our expansion over the past two years, bringing our current market coverage to 21 in total as of August 2022, with Estonia being the latest launch. Next on the radar for us are our upcoming launches later this year, which will see us reach full coverage in the Baltics – we are very excited to develop our local connections in these countries.

What else is in store in the next 12-18 months?

We are already experiencing significant growth this year, and we are conscious of ensuring that the development of the business remains in line with our goal, which is to prioritize user experience.

Over the next 12-18 months, one of our biggest projects will be to establish local operations in our existing markets. These local relationships provide invaluable insight into feedback from sellers and consumers and help to continually shape our solutions. We are also working on product launches with specific verticals in mind that we feel are still underserved by current payment options in the market.

One of the biggest advantages we find as a second-generation fintech is being able to draw on the extensive knowledge of our talented team who usually start their careers in some of Europe’s biggest payment companies. We use this diversity of experience to identify and evaluate verticals that we believe could be better served by an instant payment solution.