Instant payments are convenient means of payment for various types of users. Both for individuals and the business segment, the possibility to send an instant request to receive money or get the money back – is a fast and innovative solution that is necessary in today’s digital world. In many payment situations, individuals or businesses do not want to wait too long for payment, cash settlement is not convenient, and card payments are not an available option. It can be the case for gig workers, private entrepreneurs, or in person-to-person interactions. Additionally, in everyday situations, sometimes people can (or like to) forget that they have to send money to the recipient urgently. As a result, these situations can affect even the social life of a certain person and can create some awkward situations.
Continuing the topic of instant payments initiated by request-to-pay, the OTP Bank Hungary instant payments service should be mentioned as an apt example in the CEE region. According to the OTP Bank Hungary press release (dated May 3, 2022), starting from May 1, 2021, the Bank expanded the possibilities of implementing instant payments. Since then, Bank customers can make request-to-pay and get this type of request not only among the OTP Bank Hungary customers. This novelty also applies to customers of other financial institutions. Moreover, the Bank informed the customers that these requests can be initiated via online banking and mobile banking OTP Bank Hungary[1].
It should be noted that request-to-pay is not implied independent withdrawal of money from the customer’s account. It is just a message that informs the recipient about the initiation of the future transfer by an individual or a company to pay for a service, product, etc. Accordingly, the recipient of such a request can either confirm it and thereby make an instant payment or reject it [1].
Recently, OTP Bank Hungary released a PR article promoting the usage of request-to-pay, in which the author describes a story about a group of friends, where the main character always did the cooking and paid for groceries all by himself. He felts awkward asking about splitting the costs, but his friends haven’t thought about contributing to the costs. However, after sending request-to-pay, his friends transferred the necessary amount to him without any problems [2].
This is a great example of PR actions for promoting request-to-pay, without any technical terminology for the end users, just real-life situations and how exactly financial solutions can help in these situations. The example is based on the usage of request-to-pay in the P2P segment, but it is a great start.
Request-to-pay will become a game changer for today’s financial and social environment, which accelerates all types of payment, thereby facilitating the process of transferring and receiving funds from users in many payment situations.
More on this topic: on October 20, SME Banking Club (Poland), together with CharlieIndia (Hungary), organized a webinar on the topic of making request-to-pay happen with the help of e-invoicing. During the webinar, Olena Gryniuk (SME Banking Club) and Katalin Kauzli (CharlieIndia) discussed the necessity of implementation of request-to-pay for the banks, the opportunities it provides, and the challenges for banks. [3].
To learn more, watch the video below:
Sources:
1. The Bank`s press release dated May 03, 2021.
2. Kemény Zsófi, Hogy lesz ebből esküvő, ha pörköltre is alig jut? (x), “Telex”.
