Request to Pay: A Key to Innovative Real-Time Solutions

What is the best way to unleash the potential of instant payments for innovative payment solutions? How do you create a seamless customer experience that delivers added value both for consumers and for companies? While financial institutions throughout Europe are still wrestling with these questions, multinational corporations in particular believe that request to pay is the answer.

Request to pay enables invoice issuers and customers to exchange structured data electronically through a payment request before the money changes hands. Thanks to this data, the payer can identify the invoice issuer and the subsequent payment is easy to identify and reconcile in the invoice issuer’s accounting.

Given the potential to use real-time functions, to facilitate automated end-to-end processes, and to support cost savings, request to pay enables the optimization of a wide range of payment situations. In a Euro Banking Association survey of companies all over Europe, the vast majority of respondents saw request to pay as relevant for e-invoicing, recurring payments, point of sale and e-commerce transactions – with e-commerce taking the top spot with a small lead.

This is confirmed by Stefan Hölscher, Lead Expert Payment at the global commerce and services company Otto Group: “E-commerce could serve as a launch pad for request to pay, considering that this new tool could significantly simplify the payment of an invoice.” Like many other payment experts at major companies, he believes that the clock is ticking for payment service providers (PSPs). As a seamless customer experience is crucial in his view, Hölscher expects payment service providers to integrate the service into their banking applications: “PSPs also need to commit to ensuring high market penetration, meaning that all customers should become reachable.” If they do not push the development of request-to-pay solutions, warns Hölscher, other players will.”

Although the European Payments Council has already established a SEPA scheme for request to pay, and EBA CLEARING provides pan-European infrastructure, a lot of concerted efforts are still needed to roll out services that meet end-users’ expectations. What the supply side needs next is firm resolve to make request to pay the top priority and to write a shared success story. This requires pan-European, cross-sector dialog, which the Euro Banking Association is currently preparing to support.

Thomas Egner
Secretary General of the Euro Banking Association