Uh that is not fair arguing. Azupay is an Australian startup fintech. You imply that it’s a foreign entity.
See https://www.claytonutz.com/knowledge/2020/july/media-release-clayton-utz-advises-tattarang-on-its-investment-in-azupay and the terms and condition
I didn’t indicate Azupay was a foreign company. I indicated that Poli is an Australian company and I am quite happy supporting a local business with a proven and secure payment system.
It is worth however noting that Azupay is a new kid on the block, late to the PayID party and is yet to prove itself.
What is also interesting is most of the bigger banks allow PayID directly through their banking apps without the need for third party apps. They also use Osko by BPAY® (e.g Westpac, NAB etc) which appears to be a direct competitor to Auzpay.
I personally would avoid use a new third party app when I can use my own bank’s banking app to perform the same function.
It will be interesting to see if Azupay survives in the long term with direct competition from the big banks (noting Osko/BPay is owned by the big four banks).
In relation to Poli, most banks indicate, like the Commonwealth…
The Commonwealth Bank does not have any working agreement with POLi Payments. The Bank urges customers making online payments to do so via the Bank’s own NetBank site for their security.
As Azupay is a third party PayID app, it will sit in the same boat as Poli and possibly be subject to the same advice from the banks.
With FinTech/spec tech companies, if their technology is unique and successful, it can be a windfall for those who invest in it. Where it isn’t unique or groundbreaking, they often struggle with their competitors trying to capture market share.
Edit: maybe Choice could consider Osko as a payment option…to cover emerging technologies.
As mentioned previously it is also worth noting that the NSW state government has recently started using Azupay for liquor and gambling licenses. State governments are known for being conservative and wouldn’t use a payment method that is not secure.
I did a quick google search but could not find any government entities using poli.
From wikipedia
POLi Version 3 was released in July 2012 and enabled payments on Macs and mobile devices; neither was possible on previous versions. The implementation logs into a user’s online banking interface from an automated virtual machine using a user’s provided bank credentials, in order to direct debit the purchase amount.[14][15]
The difference between Poli and Azupay is like the difference between handing the keys to a safe deposit box, filled with your life savings, lock to a third party who may copy it; and handing money to a third party contracted to a second party who then forwards it onto the second party.
With Poli you are risking your life savings whilst with Azupay you are risking a single transaction.
For that reason I do not think it’s subject to the same advice from the banks.
This is a serious allegation and could you please provide evidence this is the case as I am sure that many users (and Australia Post/Australian Government as its owners) would like to see it. Information widely available indicates it isn’t the case.
The main reason the banks don’t support its use is it competes directly with their own technologies they have invested in. This is possibly why it is unlikely the banks will endorse Azupay…also sighting security as the reason for not recommending its use.
Notwithstanding this, Choice shouldn’t be using its limited funds to adopt emerging payment systems which are yet to prove themselves. They are better spending its money on proven payment systems which are readily used within the market place, and that many of their members use. If Azupay does position itself as a major payment system in Australia, then this would the time Choice could consider its use.
Hi everyone
My name is Chris Haylock, the Sales Director at Azupay. I just thought I’d confirm what Azupay is and answer any questions you may have.
Azupay is a unique, real-time payment solution operating in the Australian market. It is used by the NSW Government who are rolling it out to a range of State Government agencies over time. Unlike any other payment service, transactions settle in real-time 24/7/365 and do not require the consumer to own a credit/debit card or register or download an app. No personal or financial information is shared by the consumer when they transact.
The only requirement for the consumer is to have an Australian bank account. For these reasons, Azupay is the closest alternative to cash.
Azupay creates a unique PayID specific to each transaction. This happens in real time as you generate the invoice or when the consumer pays at the checkout. This PayID carries with it all the transaction details and is then used to make the payment. Refunds can be generated by the merchant according to their refund policy.
Azupay can also generate a PayID that’s specific to the customer so they can save this in their bank address book and make payments anytime - just like BPAY but without requiring long reference numbers and BSB/Account details which require reconciliation. And of course, all transactions settle in real-time 365 days a year.
Azupay is also a payments disbursements engine so payments can be made based on a workflow or specific business rules. So for example, you can trigger a supplier payment immediately after the consumer makes their payment, or based on any other business rules. It therefore becomes a way to “program money”.
Azupay is an Australian-owned company. Our systems are based in Australia and operate under Australian law. We use the New Payments Platform (NPP) to carry and settle all transactions. The NPP was created by the Reserve Bank of Australia and is operated by the NPPA. The Azupay website does not form part of the Azupay payment service, which has seperate T’s&C’s.
Hope this helps.
Hi Chris, and welcome to the community discussion.
Thank you for declaring your interest upfront, and description of Azupay.
Just one observation
I’d suggest an EFT is effectively cash, real time not a consideration.
Isn’t NPP supposed to fix this and provide access for all bank account holders to effect real time transfers without a third party such as BPAY et al?
The NPP was designed as a person-to-person payment solution. To pay someone, you need to know their PayID (usually an email address or mobile number).
So in a consumer to business scenario, the business ordinarily needs to provide their PayID to the consumer. In order to reconcile each payment, the business also needs to provide a reference number of some sort. That’s probably fine if your business is only receiving a few transactions a day, but at scale, it quickly creates a significant reconciliation overhead.
Azupay is designed specifically as a consumer to business option and doesn’t need the business to use their PayID or to reconcile against a reference number. We create, manage and orchestrate the PayID process to make it seamless to both the business and consumer.
Hope this answers your question.
On your other point, to be as close as possible to a cash transaction, that transaction by definition, needs to settle in real-time any time of day and any day of the week. Currently, only NPP transactions can guarantee this.
Thanks for the general info @ChrisHaylock.
This component seems similar to Osko which the banks have developed through that BPay arm. It doesn’t seem that unique and something already offered by the big 4.
Just wondering why a unique PayID is needed for each transaction. I would have thought that having a customer based PayID (like above and Okso) would be easier for tracking by the business, the customer and managing tax accounting (significant reconciliation effort esp. if there is a problem).
I can see that this may benefit those who wish to ‘hide’ transactions as back tracing would be more difficult. Does this expose the use of Azupay by those who wish to hide transactions?
I can’t see how this happens with automated systems, but could see an impost if the businesses still did the old ways of accounting and reconciling. If a larger business is using online transactions, one would assume that they are likely to have some sort of electronic or automated system.
Hi All, as this discussion has moved well off topic from options for making Choice donations I created this dedicated topic. I trust everyone is comfortable with this.
Another question, doesn’t Azupay use the NPP platform as the basis for its payment system. This is what this article on the NPP website indicates…
Azupay’ is on track to be amongst the first consumer-to-business payment services to use the New Payments Platform’s PayID capabilities, when it switches on in some Australian businesses and government departments later this year.
This again seems no different in its underlying function to the bank’s Osko.
The only difference I have picked up is Azupay’s ability to generate a unique PayID for each individual transaction, but am yet to understand for a customer or business why this may be advantageous. Maybe Azupay can advise the major or significant advantage of this. Maybe there is second level security protection that no two transactions nor PayIDs are the same…but is this additional layer required or just an overkill?
Osko is the real-time overlay on the NPP supplied by BPay. This is designed for payments to a PayID and works the same way as Direct Credit payment using Pay Anyone type functions with your bank and has a few issues in a C2B context.
In order for a merchant to match a payment using vanilla NPP/Osko to a transaction, the customer needs to enter a reference number in the description field so you are relying on the customer entering the details correctly to allow for transaction reconciliation.
The customer’s PayID (if they have one, and you don’t need one to use Azupay) is not sent with the payment so can’t be used to match the transaction either.
Finally, for a merchant to verify that the payment has been made by the customer, they need to go to their online banking and find the payment in the transaction listing. When you have hundreds or thousands of payments per day, this becomes time consuming.
Azupay solves all this by:
Unique PayID per transaction that’s created in real time using Azupay APIs that has transaction matching and payment validation built in. No need for the customer to enter a reference number and no problem with customers entering the wrong amount or paying twice as these are all automatically handled by Azupay.
API integration and payment notification in real-time. We automatically update the merchant via API when we receive the payment so no need to manually match the transaction.
We also provide APIs to issue refunds
Thanks
