Our customer is an online bookshop selling a mixture of new and second-hand books as well as collectable rare and limited editions. It implemented the Open Banking Advanced solution by Ecommpay to simplify cross-border bank transfer acceptance, minimise back-office admin and improve the customer experience.
Founded five years ago, our customer competes strongly against larger, more established online bookstores through its speed and quality of service. Various delivery options are available. Staff are also experts in sourcing hard-to-find books and compiling personalised selections for readers as part of a popular monthly subscription service.
The business is based in the UK but has a loyal international clientele, particularly in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, where customers are used to paying via bank transfer or payment on invoice rather than card.
Ecommpay provided an efficient way to accept local bank payments, giving the customer access to more than 85% of banks and tens of thousands of potential accounts in the EU and UK. It also solved the problem of payment on invoices, so 90% of payments are now via Open Banking compared to 40% of manual bank transfers previously. And the customer is saving more than 2-3 hours of payment admin daily.
Customer’s goals and objectives
- Localise payments
- Minimise payment on invoice
- Simplify the payment process for customers and staff
- Grow cross-border eCommerce business quickly and efficiently
Giving customers more choice of payment options helps boost conversion, especially as almost three-quarters (71%) of consumers say they would be 'very' or 'somewhat' likely to abandon their checkout and shop elsewhere if their preferred payment method wasn't available.
Localising payments is the key to successful cross-border eCommerce expansion, particularly post-Brexit. In Europe, that generally means offering bank account-funded payment methods. However, payment on invoice is not necessarily the simplest or most efficient solution for customers or staff.
Customer mistakes are not uncommon. People often fail to provide sufficient detail for the payment to go through or to be matched against orders. Staff must check each payment manually and reconcile it against an invoice. With transfers typically taking up to three business days, payment quickly becomes an administrative nightmare, as payment-related admin takes 2-3 hours daily.
Moreover, payment on invoices is not ideal for one-off, high-value purchases, such as sales of rare first editions, or for recurring payments, e.g., monthly subscriptions. Unsurprisingly, our client was looking for a way to simplify payments to boost conversion, customer service and choice. Improving everyday operations was also a priority. Specifically, they wanted to lower payment costs, improve cash flow and grow their cross-border business effectively.
Ecommpay solution
Ecommpay has developed two in-house solutions to give eCommerce merchants a better way to accept payments.
Open Banking Advanced integrates into the merchant's checkout page, so customers can pay seamlessly without leaving the merchant's website. The merchant can also brand the payment pages, which also improves conversion.
Invoice and payment details are pre-populated for customers to simply check and approve. With no need to manually enter details, checkout is quicker and slicker. It's also more convenient when making one-off payments as well as setting up regular monthly subscription payments.
Funds are available to merchants on account in 15 seconds, making Open Banking payments via Ecommpay faster than cards. This improves cash flow, streamlines back-office reconciliation, and reduces the need to chase up late payments or bear the risk of high-value one-off payments that may never arrive.
How it works
- The customer is presented with a clean payment page within the merchant checkout.
- The customer chooses their bank and logs in as usual (e.g. username and password, Touch ID, Face ID).
- The customer checks the pre-filled information and authorises the payment.
- The funds are debited from the customer's account and credited to the merchant's account in real-time or near real-time.
In the background, Ecommpay communicates with the individual banks via a secure Open Banking API. Regardless of the bank or country, all Open Banking payments appear on a single dashboard for easy reconciliation and reporting.
The Ecommpay difference
Speed: Sped up transfer times from T2-3 to T0 – Ecommpay supports real-time SEPA Instant for EUR payments across the EU and UK Faster Payments for GBP payments, cutting payment times from 2-3 days to instant or near-instant settlement.
Convenience: Cut reconciliation times by 60% – Ecommpay provides dedicated accounts to separate customer payments from the merchant's operational accounts. Comprehensive reconciliation reports are also available, which helped reduce back-office payment admin from 2-3 hours to an hour daily.
Value: Increased payment success rates from 80% to 92% – Ecommpay integrates local bank payments directly into a merchant's website, meaning no cumbersome redirects during checkout for customers to pay in a way they know and trust. This increased the payment success rate from 80% before the introduction of the solution to 92%.
Choice: Made local bank payments the preferred choice for 90% of sales – Ecommpay's simplified payment UX, which also remembers a customer's preferred method for next time, made 'Pay by Bank' the clear choice for 90% of sales up from 40% made via manual bank transfer previously.
Why Ecommpay?
Implementing the Ecommpay Open Banking solution is quick and straightforward. Merchants typically begin testing within a couple of days. And can generally start accepting Open Banking payments a few days afterwards.
More than 85% of banks in the EU and UK are available via a single integration with Ecommpay. Switching these on is as simple as calling the Ecommpay account manager and asking for them to be activated at checkout, making it quick and simple for eCommerce merchants to localise payment when expanding cross-border.
