Cash flow management has always been critical for small and medium businesses – but during a pandemic, it can be paramount for survival. To help businesses of all sizes in the insurance, gaming and entertainment, gig, rebate, and government program industries get faster access to cash, Mastercard and AptPay today announced the integration of Mastercard Send – a global push payments platform that enables funds to be sent securely and in near real-time into any payment card or account – into the AptPay platform.
With the integration of Mastercard Send, companies using the AptPay platform will be able to send digital payments seamlessly and securely in near real-time through bank accounts, prepaid cards or digital wallets. Businesses can also reduce cheque-related expenses and fraud, with more transparent payment information and the ability to approve, reject or reverse payments as required. In Canada, more than 70% of small and medium enterprises and nearly 60% of large corporations still use cheques to pay for business expenses.[1] Using cheques, however, comes with costly hurdles and long timelines due to numerous manual processes, such as printing, mailing, reconciling information and visiting bank branches. Payments are also cleared in batches, which can take days to settle.
“COVID-19 has amplified the need for businesses to digitize and automate their payment processes, to free cash flow and eliminate the friction caused by handling cheques,” said Sue Hutchison, senior vice president of Product, Digital and New Payments at Mastercard in Canada. “With Mastercard Send, businesses and consumers can expect to receive funds directly, securely and in near real-time.”
“Over the last few years, digital transformation and faster payments have been top priorities for many industries. COVID-19 has created the perfect storm, highlighting the problems caused by not having these priorities in place. AptPay’s Digital Payment Hub enables companies to execute on these priorities and weather the storm,” said Suganthan Vishnu Krisnarajah, CEO of AptPay. “Using our APIs, companies can easily implement Mastercard Send to process payouts where the end to end process is much faster than legacy payment types. Customers can also rely on AptPay’s compliance services to ensure transactions are safe and secure, and meet the compliance needs for their industry.”
