PayPoint today announced a £3 million investment in OBConnect, an Open Banking ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) start up.

The deal will see the PayPoint Group make an investment in the company and form a commercial partnership, strengthening PayPoint’s channel-agnostic payment platform and expanding the range of digital solutions to support its clients across multiple sectors, including government, local authorities and housing associations.

The investment enhances PayPoint’s digital payments offering by adding Open Banking services, offering payments and account information services directly to its customers. This will help deliver improvements to customer experience, making it easier for organisations to access data for the benefit of their customers and creating additional cost-saving opportunities.

In addition, this builds on the transformation that has been gathering pace over the past two years, with the strategic acquisitions of Handepay/Merchant Rentals and RSM 2000 enhancing and diversifying the payments offering to clients across cash, card payments, direct debit and Open Banking.

The momentum in Open Banking has been growing considerably over the past few years, initially through consumer use-cases enabling the sharing of personal account information to financial services providers. The emerging opportunity for PayPoint and OB Connect focuses on corporate and enterprise applications of the Open Banking solutions, particularly through Confirmation of Payee (CoP) to reduce fraud and improve the payments experience for consumers.

This opportunity has gained further pace in recent weeks with PayPoint joining Pay.UK’s Confirmation of Payee service to deliver services to support local government and energy companies deliver cost-of-living support payments.

Nick Wiles, Chief Executive of PayPoint, said:

“We’re delighted to be investing in OBConnect, which will further enhance our channel-agnostic payment platform for clients in multiple sectors. This investment will enable PayPoint to continue its diversification to digital and support our clients and their customers further with smart technology designed to improve their experience and reduce costs.”

Darran Morford, CEO of OBConnect, added:

“PayPoint was a natural partner for us as we seek to expand our Open Banking solutions, enabling more organisations and consumers to benefit from better experiences and lower costs. This investment will help us build on the significant progress made in the last few years and unlock further opportunities for both parties.”