Payments-as-a-service platform Answer Pay and online invoicing service and technology provider Partner Hub have joined forces to make it easier for banks to offer their customers request-to-pay and eInvoicing services.
The partnership pairs Answer Pay’s request-to-pay service, available in the United Kingdom and the Single European Payments Area (SEPA), with Partner Hub’s ability to reformat invoice data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for invoice presentation and automatically generate payment requests over Answer Pay’s request-to-pay networks, according to a Wednesday (Sept. 28) Answer Pay blog post.
Together, the two companies make it easier for banks to integrate these services into their offerings, the post stated.
“With our [eInvoice] solution, the two largest banks in Hungary were able to quickly and securely get up and running,” Partner Hub co-founder Katalin Kauzli said in the post. “We’re looking forward to working with Answer Pay to help banks in the rest of Europe take full advantage of this powerful combination of [eInvoicing] and [request-to-pay].”
Request-to-pay use is growing because it helps businesses collect regular payments from their customers — which is especially important during the current cost of living crisis in Europe — while eInvoicing is becoming more common because many European nations are looking to make it mandatory, according to the post.
“The cost of living crisis will create a change in how we manage our bill payments,” Answer Pay Executive Adviser Ralf Ohlhausen said. “Add to this the drive around Europe for [eInvoicing] and you can see why we’re so excited to work with Partner Hub to bring to market this exciting innovation.”
As PYMNTS reported in September 2021, request-to-pay has benefits for both payees and payors.
Read more: Deep Dive: How Request-to-Pay Functions Are Taking the Real-Time Payments Space By Storm
Request-to-pay enables payees to speed up their reconciliation efforts, and allows payors to choose when and how to make their payments, according to “Real-Time Payments,” a PYMNTS and The Clearing House collaboration.
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