Clear Junction announces new service for Open Banking providers

Clear Junction has announced the introduction of a new e-wallet solution that will enable open banking providers to overcome some of the challenges they face when going to market.

Clear Junction has been working on a new and improved e-wallet solution that adds value to open banking providers. Payment Initiation Service (PIS) licences tend to be very specific and do not enable providers to hold merchant funds. This means that merchants need to strike an agreement with an open banking provider and a separate arrangement with a bank or a payment service provider.

However, with Clear Junction’s new e-wallets for merchants, open banking providers partnered and integrated with Clear Junction can approach merchants and simultaneously offer them open banking technology and settlement and collection accounts. Thus, their customers can benefit from a one-stop-shop solution which minimises the onboarding and integration effort required.

HOW THE NEW SERVICE WORKS

Clear Junction provides open banking providers with a master e-wallet through which they can generate sub e-wallets for each of their merchants. The merchants can send and receive payments in and out of their e-wallets (which are held and operated by Clear Junction and integrated into the open banking provider’s platform).

These e-wallets are connected to both Faster Payments and SEPA Instant payment rails meaning GBP and EUR payments are collected and reconciled instantaneously. It serves as a complete solution that significantly enhances the customer offering of open banking providers; not only is the process quicker for them, it is quicker for their customers, making their offering more attractive with the minimum of fuss. This additional workflow efficiency is expected to further increase the competitiveness of open banking compared to card acquiring.

“As a firm focused on providing services for banks and financial institutions, we are delighted to announce this new product for open banking vendors,” explains Berivan Demir, Product & Banking Relationship Director at Clear Junction. “The recent fee increase announced by Visa and MasterCard further emphasises the importance of open banking as the alternative for global merchants. Through our new e-wallet offering, open banking providers are able to enhance their customer offering, making the entire process of sending and receiving funds quick and easy. Our roadmap includes implementation of localised IBANs across major European countries to streamline the local PIS collections very soon.”