Digital-Payments Accelerator launched to meet increasing market demand

Novatti Group Limited (ASX:NOV), a leading digital banking services and payments company, announce the launch of its Digital Payments Accelerator.

The Digital Payments Accelerator extends Novatti’s Visa Issuing white label programs to meet the needs of:

▪ Startups and innovators to bring their innovative fintech and financial products to market quicker, and to test their products in a controlled way before launch, driving increased innovation in the payments sector

▪ Established businesses to access an affordable, off-the-shelf, Visa payments solution to meet market demand for these facilities

The demand from consumers for cashless payment facilities is growing rapidly. In 2019, card payments already represented 63% of consumer payments compared to cash at 27%¹. Post-COVID-19, this shift to cashless payments is only expected to accelerate.

Novatti will deliver this solution as a service, providing access to Visa’s world-class payments infrastructure and capabilities without the significant upfront investment ordinarily required.

Novatti’s Digital Payments Accelerator involves a simple three-stage process, including a proof of concept, build and test, then launch. Available capabilities and features include:

▪ Visa virtual and physical payment cards

▪ Universal, omni-channel merchant access, with full in-store and online payment functionality

▪ Web portals

▪ Sandbox testing environments

▪ APIs

▪ Program, tech and card management support, including fraud management, and ledger management for account balances

The Digital Payments Accelerator leverages Novatti’s existing technology and extensive regulatory licences and agreements, which include a Visa Principal Issuing Licence and an Australian Financial Services Licence held by its subsidiary, Flexewallet.

Novatti’s $10.2 million capital raising earlier this year played an important role in delivering this new initiative, another practical example of how Novatti will use these funds to accelerate its growth strategy.

Pre-launch demand has already validated the need for this initiative, including for innovative products such as ‘Just in Time’ or ‘Point of Sale’ financing, distribution of social benefits, and digital wallets. Current projects include a network to provide consumer digital wallets along with solutions enabling immediate payment to couriers and to provide controlled welfare payments to people in urgent need of assistance.

Novatti will receive program development fees and ongoing processing fees based on transaction volumes. Card accounts will be pre-funded by customers, alleviating Novatti from this funding obligation and credit risk.

Managing Director of Novatti, Peter Cook, said, “We’ve seen the rise of the ‘bank in a box’ and ‘banking as a service’, which is revolutionising that sector by providing open access to infrastructure previously reserved for the big end of town.

“Novatti’s Digital Payments Accelerator equally revolutionises the payments sector by providing everyone, from startups to small businesses, and large enterprises to government, with access to Visa’s world-class payments platform and card issuing facilities at an affordable cost. This will help business meet the rapid increase in consumer demand for cashless payments, which we strongly believe will accelerate post-COVID-19.”

The Digital Payments Accelerator follows some of Novatti’s other recent growth-focused achievements, including:

▪ Business process automation subsidiary, Emersion, being cleared to launch on leading global business applications marketplace, Salesforce AppExchange²

▪ Five consecutive quarters of record payment processing revenue³

▪ Recording average annual revenue growth of approximately 50% in each of the past three years⁴

Further details about this new initiative can be seen at: www.novatti.com/accelerator

1. RBA Consumer Payment Behaviour in Australia, March 2020 – https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/mar/consumer-payment-behaviour-in-australia.html
2. Novatti ASX Announcement – Salesforce clears Emersion for launch on global marketplace – 4 September 2020
3. Novatti ASX Announcement – FY20 Results Presentation – 27 August 2020
4. Novatti ASX Announcement – FY20 Results Presentation – 27 August 2020