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Historically there has always been a need for consumers to pay for goods or services on a regular periodic basis, typical examples would be payments for utilities, telephones, rents or mortgages.
Adding to the examples above there is a growing global trend for consumers to move away from making outright purchase towards paying on a usage basis, the subscription economy, which exhibits a similar reliance on recurring payments.
In the well established markets highly efficient automated payment processes, such as Direct Debits, have become the norm however there are still consumers who by choice opt to pay using non-electronic methods which, for the biller, are difficult and expensive to process.
Advances in technology along with changing consumer habits have now created an environment where services can be delivered that both enhance the existing commonly used payment channels and at the same time remove the barriers that push payers into using non-electronic channels. The aim of the Sentenial services for this sector are thus to provide a better experience for payers whilst at the same time reducing costs for the biller.
Direct Debits
Sentenial is the home of Direct Debits, it is where the company started in 2003. Sentenial has been providing Direct Debit services to businesses of all sizes since its formation and thanks to a strategy of continuous development, now provides the most comprehensive service available.
Solutions are available that cover all aspects of using Direct Debits starting with sponsorship into the Direct Debit world and then on to online mandate signing, mandate lifetime management, processing collection requests and dealing with any exceptions that may occur.
Support is currently available for Euro based Direct Debits within the Single Euro Payments Area as well as for Sterling collections in the UK. The services are designed to give users the ability to collect by Direct Debit in multiple countries via a single common interface.
As with all Sentenial products Application Programming Interface support is provided covering all aspects of the process along with the ability to use file based or manual controls.
Request to Pay
RtP is a new concept to much of Europe introducing a standardised messaging infrastructure that links a biller with their payers. The standardised message is intended to increase transparency for the payer and provide a degree of flexibility into how and when the payment is made.
In itself this is not a payment method but its aim is to have the payer authorise a payment in line with the request using whatever payment channels the biller is prepared to support.
RtP is currently being introduced in the UK with the rest of Europe following shortly and many other countries around the world working on planned introduction.
The Sentenial approach
Sentenial capitalise on the RtP developments by integrating the message flows with a range of payment channels such as direct debits, real-time credit transfers and Open Banking payments.
RtP messages allow payment mechanisms to be deployed that are attractive to those reluctant to use the current legacy channels thus increasing the percentage of payers using digital payment methods. They can also be used to improve information delivery around existing payment types giving the payers greater transparency of their financial affairs.
The Sentenial solution provides an omni-channel service for billers giving an enhanced payer experience for those using both existing and new payment channels.