PayTech Awards 2021 Winner: AccessPay – PayTech Team Of The Year
Satisfying the need for speed – how AccessPay is creating a seamless digital experience for bank customers.
Anish Kapoor, CEO of AccessPay
Corporate clients expect an elite service from their banks and financial institutions.
This key relationship, built over time, means they not only trust you with current operational needs but also expect you to be ready to innovate for future financial needs.
According to an Accenture survey of 160 retail and commercial banks, from 20 countries, digital leadership vastly improves financial performance.
The impact of introducing a software partner
With the rise in paytech and fintech, banks now have the option to partner with best-in-breed digital solutions, staying ahead of the curve and offering more to their clients.
Transformation leader at EY, Jeroen van der Kroft, said: “Banks have two main drivers to collaborate with FinTech companies.
“Customers have become increasingly used to a seamless digital experience and expect the same from their bank; a service few banks are able to provide (yet).
“Furthermore, due to the emergence of these one-stop-shops, fintech companies have moved from being just a single service provider to providing a whole suite of services.”
Both of these benefits apply to AccessPay, winner of the PayTech Team of the Year award 2021.
Who is AccessPay?
The UK-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firm provides one portal for all payments. Its system is file agnostic and sits between a corporate’s back-end operations, like an ERP, and their banking estate.
It speeds up transactional processing for corporate clients such as The AA, ITV and Imperial College London and provides a more forward-thinking, integrated and intuitive way of working.
For banks, introducing a payments integration platform like this can really set you apart in a competitive marketplace.
Case study: Sainsbury’s Bank
A preferred software partner is not only a great asset to introduce to your corporate client base but also for internal financial transformation projects.
For example, Sainsbury’s Bank approached AccessPay in 2019 about reducing the burden of manual processing tasks within its own Treasury team.
Like many of its corporate clients, the high street bank was experiencing a pain point around processing payment data.
Treasury staff were making high-value cross-border payments every day but found the current process too manual and therefore time-consuming.
Treasury Operations Manager at Sainsbury’s Bank, Warren Hyde, explains: “Formatting and uploading the payment data, then checking for accuracy, can take hours.”
Instead, Sainsbury’s Bank wanted to integrate its TMS with the payment network. AccessPay supported the bank in achieving this goal.
Warren praised the business’s SWIFT expertise as well as “excellent customer service”.
He said: “Without AccessPay, we’d have to revert to old manual processes and we wouldn’t have the oversight of our cash we enjoy now. The platform has transformed the way we work for the better.
“The software business has an impressive roster of customers who they have helped to achieve the same efficiency goal, particularly financial institutions like ours.
“We were confident the team would be able to meet our needs and transform our operations.”
The growing firm already works with some of the biggest banks in the UK and beyond including Barclays, HSBC, NatWest and Santander.
James Stockton, Head of Partner and Market Development, AccessPay
James Stockton, Head of Partner and Market Development at AccessPay, said: “We are giving banks the edge in an ever-changing financial world.
“We already have relationships with numerous banks across the globe and understand the potential challenges they face.
“Innovative tech-driven solutions like ours are valuable added services for banks and their business customers. It also helps to decrease the amount of customer churn with no extra work.”
What does the future hold?
With digital transformation projects on the rise, post-pandemic, it’s a busy time for AccessPay.
The Manchester-based FinTech has ambitious plans to double headcount in the next 12 months and has recently made several senior hires to support further growth.
CEO, Anish Kapoor, said: “It’s a really exciting time at AccessPay as we continue to grow the business and invest in the best talent around.
“Getting data to and from a bank is at the heart of what finance teams do and yet the technology hasn’t changed in 20 years.
“We are a trusted partner to global banks, and customers use our technology to create a secure, fully digital connection between all of their banks and their ERP, HCM and Treasury systems.”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL PAYTECH AWARDS WINNERS SUPPLEMENT, IT’S FREE AND FEATURES SOME OF THE MOST IMPACTFUL AND INNOVATIVE PROJECTS, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND PEOPLE IN THE PAYMENTS SPACE IN 2021!
