Mastercard is pushing new real-time payments use cases

Get the Full StoryThis story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence Payments & Commerce subscribers earlier this morning.

To get this story plus others to your inbox each day, hours before they're published on Business Insider, click here.

The card network officially acquired Vocalink in 2017 and Transfast in 2019, both of which helped Mastercard develop its ability to move beyond its traditional card rails and into real-time payments RTP . Now, Mastercard is taking two new steps that will expand its reach and rely on RTP to succeed:

It's launched a business-to-business B2B RTP solution called Payment on Delivery. The offering enables a supplier's bank to request a payment and for a business to pay immediately upon delivery, potentially removing inefficiencies from the process like time delays and paperwork. Payment on Delivery uses The Clearing House's TCH RTP network and is being piloted with PNC Bank. It's first being deployed for alcohol distribution where payments can be complicated due to various regulations.

Mastercard has expanded its Bill Pay Exchange product to new clients, which could boost access to RTP transactions. The solution, which was announced in October 2018, aims to let consumers pay many or all of their bills from a banking app or website, making for a less fragmented experience. Bill Pay Exchange is being rolled out with firms like ConEd that bill consumers, and bill pay players including recent Mastercard acquisition Transactis. It enables consumers to pay their bills with bank account payments, cards, and RTP transactions if both the consumer and billing bank are set up to do so, Ronald Shultz, Mastercard EVP, new payment flows, North America, told Business Insider Intelligence.

These two use cases could boost adoption of RTP because they might remove pain points surrounding efficiency. Both the B2B payments and bill pay industries still involve a significant amount of checks, cash, and nondigital processes, potentially making them prime targets for new digital offerings.

Because B2B payments can follow "a clunky and inefficient process," Shultz said in a release, and some consumers would benefit from the financial flexibility of being able to pay bills at the last minute, RTP may have particularly strong appeal in these areas. And once businesses and consumers grow accustomed to the speed of RTP and its convenience, they could start to expect it elsewhere, leading to demand for RTP across all types of payments.See the rest of the story at Business InsiderSee Also:FINTECH MEGADEALS: How FIS-Worldpay, Fiserv-First Data, and Global Payments-TSYS will reshape the payments landscapeUS Bank customers are becoming increasingly digitally active despite lagging digital loan salesMunich Re Automation Solutions pushes further into Software-as-a-Service with ALLFINANZ SPARK

Share: