Fintech company Finastra has unveiled its new cloud-based instant payments offering for small and mid-sized banks. Fusion Global PAYplus will be available to tier three and four financial institutions in the EU and US, without the cost and on-premise infrastructure requirements that may previously have been a barrier to entry.
Based on Microsoft Azure, the pre-defined offering will be generally available in Q2 2019. It will enable central updates, including SWIFT and clearing scheme updates. Banks will be able to get up and running in just a few months with standardized pricing and onboarding. The SaaS platform is designed to provide a clear, future-proof cost structure and flexibility in a market where volumes are currently hard to predict.
“The adoption of immediate payments is moving at a rapid pace and is becoming increasingly ubiquitous said Sagive Greenspan, general manager of Payments at Finastra. “It is driven by customer expectations of banking services that provide a user experience aligned to what they encounter in other areas of their lives. Immediate payments are the essential underpinning for clients’ digital transformations.
“We will enable small and mid-sized banks to step up to the plate and really compete in the cloud environment. Where the largest banks would likely prefer our private cloud solution, small and mid-sized banks crave cost-effective packaged solutions which are quick to deploy and avoid legacy platform complications, but still deliver a state-of-the-art product.
We will enable small and mid-sized banks to step up to the plate and really compete in the cloud environment
“We’re responding to this increasing demand for hosted payments solutions with a compelling offering built on our deep domain expertise, in combination with Microsoft.”
The Fusion Global PAYplus packaged cloud solution will serve the growing need for immediate payments processing, including high throughput all day, every day and end-to-end transaction times of seconds. Financial institutions will be able to tap into a proven service, without extensive development and implementation timeframes or costs, and it will ease the move from a CapEx to an OpEx environment.
Janet Lewis, vice president of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft, said: “We are pleased that European payment service providers will now be able to access Finastra’s instant payments solution in a manner that reduces cost of ownership and simplifies solution updates – all while ensuring the specific security, privacy and compliance needs of instant payments are met.”
In an increasingly open and collaborative payments landscape, real-time processing capability is essential to support initiatives such as Open Banking and the ever-growing range of value added services on offer from fintechs and other players.
A recent whitepaper from Finastra and Accenture outlines how payments is a fundamental component of today’s API ecosystem. Gareth Wilson, managing director, global payments at Accenture, said: “Consumers and businesses alike are demanding real-time, connected experiences, driving banks to deliver next generation API services. Advanced payments-related APIs will be essential in helping banks drive innovation and transformation, enabling banks to deliver new services.”