Marketing Team, Author at Cuscal

Cuscal announces changes to Executive Leadership Team

Posted on February 16, 2024February 16, 2024 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 16 February 2024

Cuscal Limited (Cuscal) confirms that after ten years with the business, Bianca Bates has resigned from her role as the Deputy CEO at Cuscal to take on a new position at Smartgroup Corporation Limited (ASX: SIQ).

Bianca held many positions within Cuscal over her tenure and led Cuscal’s operating model’s transformation, client base diversification, and successful investment in new technology and products.

Craig Kennedy, Managing Director at Cuscal, said:

In the past ten years, Bianca has played a significant role in our growth trajectory. We thank her for her outstanding contribution to Cuscal and wish her the very best in the next chapter of her career.

Bianca will remain in her current role as Deputy CEO for Cuscal until the end of the financial year. She will be integral in recruiting a new Chief Client Officer, which will commence immediately.

Cuscal also announced that Angela Powell has commenced as Cuscal’s new Chief Risk Officer, bringing over 20 years of experience in banking and financial services both domestically and internationally and expertise in risk management, governance, regulation, operational excellence, and strategic transformation.

Powering seamless and secure connections for customers. Always.

Posted on September 4, 2023January 8, 2024 by Marketing Team

For over 60 years Cuscal has been empowering seamless and secure connections for customers, providing banks, mutuals and credit unions, payment service providers and enterprise clients with wholesale connectivity services to Australia’s entire payment ecosystem.

Discover the role Cuscal plays in enabling access to Australia’s card payments network and how we ensure the safe, secure and seamless processing of retail card payments for our clients and their customers.

Cuscal signals commitment to Australia’s Open Data economy through strategic investment in Basiq

Posted on March 10, 2023February 1, 2024 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 10 March 2023

Cuscal Limited (Cuscal), one of Australia’s largest independent providers of payments, banking and regulated data has entered into a binding agreement, under which Cuscal will acquire a material controlling interest in Braavos Corporation Pty Ltd, the parent company of Basiq Pty Ltd (Basiq), a leading Data and Open Banking API platform, subject to customary conditions. A further update will be provided upon completion. This acquisition represents a significant and strategic investment by Cuscal in the future state of the Open Data economy. Bringing together some of the industry’s leading Consumer Data Right (CDR) and payment systems to accelerate the development of new services and customer experiences in partnership with our clients that will enable the convergence of payments, data and digital identity.

Basiq’s deep expertise in financial data aggregation and history of providing tools required to acquire and analyse financial data securely, are complementary to Cuscal’s payments experience and existing CDR solutions.

Basiq will continue to operate as a stand-alone business within the Cuscal Group. It is envisaged that there will be no material change to the current structure of the team at Basiq or to Cuscal’s regulated data business. Basiq will continue to provide clients and the broader industry with access to consented financial data and all the tools required to uncover insights through Basiq’s platform while collaborating closely with Cuscal on enabling new high-value use cases, including those that are made possible by CDR-powered Action Initiations.

Commenting on the acquisition, Craig Kennedy, Cuscal’s Managing Director said: “Today marks an exciting new chapter for Cuscal, as we fast-track our maturity in enabling the Open Data economy and cement our position as a leading provider of Payments and Regulated Data services in Australia.”

“Together with Basiq we have unmatched expertise and capabilities with respect to the combination of payments, data, and the CDR. We look forward to unlocking the full potential of these assets for the mutual benefit of our clients and the wider industry.”

CEO and Founder of Basiq, Damir Ćuća, added: “Using data-only solutions is helpful, but when combined with payments, the possibilities are limitless. Data is essential in making smarter payment decisions and with Cuscal’s expertise in payment processing we can create more innovative solutions that benefit end consumers.”

About Cuscal Limited (Cuscal)
For more than 50 years, Cuscal has championed competition in banking and payments in Australia. More recently, Cuscal has moved beyond banking and payments into the broader data economy. Drawing upon extensive experience managing payments data that is digital, regulated, must always be secure, and flows seamlessly between consumers and enterprise. As an accredited data recipient (ADRBNK2019) and the provider of compliant data holder solutions, Cuscal provides data holders and data recipients access to a suite of secure and robust capabilities for the collection, sharing, management and storage of data subject to CDR legislation.

About Basiq
Basiq’s vision is to make finance easy. Basiq sees a world where consumers are empowered to make smarter financial decisions and can engage with their finances in new and unique ways. Basiq enables this by providing an Open Finance API platform for businesses to build innovative financial solutions. The platform facilitates the relationship between fintechs and consumers by enabling access to consented financial data and executing smart data-driven payments.

Media contact
Simone Perryman: sperryman@cuscal.com.au

Cuscal continues to empower Australia’s data economy with the acquisition of industry-leading Data Recipient and Product Verification Testing solutions

Posted on December 8, 2022February 1, 2024 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 8 December 2022

Cuscal, Australia’s largest independent provider of payment, banking and regulated data solutions, has made its first strategic acquisition in the Open Banking and Consumer Data Right (CDR) space through the acquisition of myCDRdata from Regional Australia Bank.

The purchase of myCDRdata positions Cuscal to lead in Open Banking and CDR with immediate access to proven technology that has been successful in market and that can be utilised across Cuscal’s client base and by the wider industry quickly and at scale.

myCDRdata builds on the existing CDR solutions Cuscal delivers to its clients. Through myCDRdata, Cuscal will deliver an accredited Data Recipient solution that allows for Data Aggregation of mandated Datasets enabling market participants to deploy fit-for-purpose use cases. Additionally, myCDRdata delivers a fully operational Test Harness (myCDRdata Pro) that enables market participants to manage compliance obligations by monitoring the health, behaviour and performance of CDR APIs.

Following integration by Cuscal, myCDRdata and myCDRdata Pro capabilities will be enhanced and adapted for use by new industry sectors as the CDR continues to roll out beyond the Banking sector. This will provide all market participants, regardless of industry or data holder service, the ability to test, diagnose and solve flaws in production data holder platforms, enabling them to avoid enforcement action for non-compliance due to API failure.

myCDRdata is well recognised and respected in the industry and is a natural addition to Cuscal’s proven and reliable payments and banking technology solutions.

Cuscal’s CEO and Managing Director Craig Kennedy said: “We are excited by the opportunity to acquire this proven market leading asset from Regional Australia Bank, which will position us well to accelerate our relevance and maturity in Open Banking and CDR. We believe the convergence of data, digital identity and payments is a key growth opportunity for Cuscal, and the acquisition of myCDRdata will accelerate this strategic focus.”

Regional Australia Bank, CEO David Heine said: “Regional Australia Bank is proud to have founded this leading product in the Open Banking space. This product is a representation of the hard work and dedication Regional Australia Bank continues to demonstrate towards future driven banking. We are excited to pass the baton to Cuscal, and assure our myCDRdata customers they are in good hands.”

About Cuscal Limited (Cuscal)
For more than 50 years, Cuscal has championed competition in banking and payments in Australia. More recently, Cuscal has moved beyond banking and payments into the broader data economy. Drawing upon extensive experience managing payments data that is digital, regulated, must always be secure, and flows seamlessly between consumers and enterprise, Cuscal provides data holders and data recipients access to a suite of secure and robust capabilities for the collection, sharing, management and storage of data subject to CDR legislation.

About myCDRdata
myCDRdata includes both software assets ‘myCDRdata’ and ‘myCDRdata Pro’ for consumers and enterprise. myCDRdata is a free, secure CDR discovery service for consumers, powered by CDR compliant APIs and UI, that lets them experience how the CDR works and discover their own data. myCDRdata Pro is a product verification testing and issue rectification service designed to help data holders and CDR service providers test, diagnose and solve flaws in their production data holder services.

About Regional Australia Bank
Regional Australia Bank is a customer owned bank that has been helping regional Australians achieve their lifestyle goals for almost 50 years. Known for being flexible, personable and being able to make the complex simple.

An organisation built strongly on everything that makes regional Australia special – and providing a new standard of banking to all regional Australians. Above all, Regional Australia Bank is about building better financial relationships with its members – and that’s something that can’t often be said of the nation’s larger retail banks. The organisation has proudly donated over $2 million dollars to community groups in regional Australia in the past 12 months and is an organisation that is truly proud to support regional Australians.

Regional Australia Bank was the first organisation in Australia to become an Accredited Data Recipient (ADR) in 2020 and the first bank to both publish and receive CDR data.

Media contact
Simone Perryman, sperryman@cuscal.com.au

Over 70% of NPP Identified Institutions enabled by Cuscal now certified to provide PayTo services

Posted on November 29, 2022October 26, 2023 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 29 November 2022

A further 10 authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) have been enabled by Cuscal to offer PayTo services to customers. This brings the total number of ADIs connected to PayTo through Cuscal to 26, covering 33 bank brands, with eight payment service providers certified to provide PayTo Payment Initiation services to businesses.

The latest ADIs to be certified by Cuscal as Payer Participants are: Australian Mutual Bank Limited, Community First Credit Union, Central Murray Credit Union, Geelong Bank, Goulburn Murray Credit Union, Illawarra Credit Union, Orange Credit Union, South West Slopes Credit Union, The Mac and Unity Bank Limited (Unity Bank, Reliance Bank).

Clients certified to offer PayTo will make services available to their customers over the coming days and weeks, based upon their individual service delivery strategies and rollout plans.

About Cuscal
Cuscal was the first directly connected participant to be certified by NPPA as an Initiating Participant and Payer Participant for PayTo Cuscal facilitated the creation, orchestration and initiation of the first live PayTo payment on the NPP.

Cuscal’s NPP solution is the only fully compliant solution currently in market delivering all the features of the NPP, with access to all the flows and options for NPP messaging and services, optimising the PayTo and real-time payment experience for customers.

With over 4 years NPP implementation experience, enabling 60+ implementations since 2018, Cuscal has helped more organisations to access the NPP than anyone else, including more than half of all financial institutions and all of the payment service providers that are providing payments on the Platform today.

About the New Payments Platform (NPP)
The NPP enables smarter, faster and simpler payments for businesses and consumers, including PayID and PayTo, a new digital way for merchants and businesses to initiate real-time payments from customers’ bank accounts. PayID is a registered trademark of NPP Australia Limited. Osko is a registered trademark of BPAY Pty Ltd. NPP Australia Limited and BPAY Pty Ltd are part of the of Australian Payments Plus group. For more information visit www.nppa.com.au

Media contact
Simone Perryman, sperryman@cuscal.com.au

Pathways to access PayTo as an Initiating Business or Payment Initiator

Posted on November 17, 2022October 26, 2023 by Marketing Team

As more banks (and by extension millions of customers) progressively connect to the PayTo ecosystem, attention is shifting to those businesses that have been enabled as PayTo Users and the innovative use cases that they are bringing to market.

But in an ecosystem of directly and indirectly connected participants, what pathways are open to businesses to access PayTo and the New Payments Platform (NPP)? And what role do different PayTo Users play in the creation, initiation and settlement of payments?

In this article we aim to shine a light on these questions.

The PayTo ecosystem

PayTo is an interconnected network of participants that connects customers, business and their financial institutions, facilitating the creation of PayTo agreements and ensuring the smooth flow of payment initiation requests and settlement of funds in real-time.

Figure 1: PayTo participant ecosystem

While banks are instrumental when it comes to facilitating the authorisation and management of PayTo agreements by customers and settling funds when valid payment initiation requests are received, PayTo Users are the main players when it comes to the creation and initiation of PayTo agreements.

PayTo Users

In the PayTo ecosystem there are two types of PayTo Users: the Initiating Business and the Payment Initiator.

Initiating Businesses are responsible for entering into PayTo agreements with the debtor customer, defining the PayTo agreement terms that will be registered in NPPA’s Mandate Management Service (MMS) and authorised by the customer through their digital banking channel, and initiating requests for payment in accordance with the agreed terms.

Payment Initiators are responsible for the exchange of PayTo agreement creation and payment messages to/from the Initiating Businesses with the wider PayTo ecosystem, via APIs provided by the sponsoring Initiating Participant.

Initiating Participants

To access PayTo as a Payment Initiator, businesses need to be sponsored by an Initiating Participant: either a Connected Institution or an NPP Participant or Identified Institution that has been certified as a Payment Initiator.

Connected Institutions are only able to use the non-value messaging capabilities of the NPP Basic Infrastructure to create a PayTo mandate and send a Payment Initiation Request. They cannot clear or settle payments or issue or manage PayIDs.

NPP Participants and Identified Institutions that have been certified as a Payment Initiator have access to all flows and options for NPP messaging and services, delivering end-to-end payment initiation, PayID issuance and management, and clearing and settlement services through a single provider.

Clearing and settlement services can only be provided by an NPP Participant licensed by APRA as an Authorised Deposit-Taking Institution (ADI)This helps to keep payments safe because as ADIs, NPP Participants meet the prudential requirements set by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to operate in the regulated payments environment and have access to RBA settlement facilities. Like in other payment systems, the NPP Participant can sponsor other organisations to provide clearing and settlement services on their behalf, and in the NPP, these entities are referred to as Identified Institutions.

Figure 2: Cuscal NPP services compared to other directly connected participants

Why Cuscal

As the first directly connected participant to be certified by NPP Australia (NPPA) as an Initiating Participant and Payer Participant, Cuscal plays a unique role in the PayTo ecosystem.

As a certified Initiating Participant, Cuscal connects high volume and high growth businesses, payment service providers, platforms and payment facilitators to the NPP as Identified Institutions and Payment Initiators, providing access to all the features of the NPP under a sponsorship arrangement. Businesses can connect to PayTo as an Initiating Business through a Payment Initiator under a proprietary commercial arrangement with a Payment Initiator that has been connected to the Platform by Cuscal.

As a certified Payer Participant, Cuscal provides banks, credit unions and mutual banks with access to the services required to receive, process and manage PayTo agreements and payment initiation requests, as well as the infrastructure required to clear and settle payments.

At Cuscal we have been helping our clients to access Australia’s payment systems with innovative solutions for over 50 years. As the market leader in providing NPP services, with over 4 years NPP experience enabling 60+ implementations since 2018, we’ve helped more organisations to access the NPP than anyone else, including more than half of all financial institutions and all of the payment service providers that are providing payments on the Platform today.

With the launch of PayTo, Cuscal has the scale, expertise, trusted industry position and comprehensive real-time account-based payment and payment initiation solutions required by Payment Initiators.

To find out more about connecting to PayTo as a Payment Initiator and how you can provide PayTo services to your business customers, contact Cuscal.

PayTo ecosystem expands with certification of 12 Cuscal clients

Posted on October 4, 2022October 26, 2023 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 4 October 2022

Cuscal Limited today announced that 12 clients have been approved to offer PayTo services to consumers and businesses, expanding the number of Identified Institutions certified as Payer Participants and Initiating Participants.

Payer Participants enabled by Cuscal
The following clients have been certified by Cuscal as Payer Participants: Bank Australia, BankWAW, Broken Hill Community Credit Union, Credit Union SA, Defence Bank, First Option Bank, Horizon Bank, Laboratories Credit Union, Police & Nurses Limited (P&N Bank, bcu) and RACQ Bank, joining Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Great Southern Bank and People’s Choice that received certification from NPP Australia Limited (NPPA) in September.

Each of these organisations will now make PayTo available within their digital banking channels.

Initiating Participants enabled by Cuscal
Global Payments (eway, ezidebit) and Merchant Warrior have been certified by Cuscal to provide PayTo initiation services to businesses, joining Azupay, Ezypay, Monoova, Paypa Plane and Zai as Initiating Participants.

Commenting on the growing number of participants connected to PayTo through Cuscal, Nathan Churchward, Head of Product, Emerging Services said:

Successful completion of the certification process by such a diverse group of Identified Institutions at the same time is testament to the value of partnership and collaboration when it comes to advancing complex industry programs like PayTo. With over 14 bank and credit union brands and 8 payments service providers now connected to the PayTo ecosystem through Cuscal, we are cementing our position as the undisputed leader in the provision of enterprise NPP services.

About Cuscal
Cuscal was the first participant to be certified by NPPA as both an Initiating Participant and Payer Participant for PayTo. Cuscal facilitated the creation, orchestration, and initiation of the first live PayTo payment on the NPP.

With over 4 years NPP implementation experience, enabling 60+ implementations since 2018, Cuscal has helped more organisations to access the NPP than anyone else, including more than half of all financial institutions and all the payment service providers that are providing their customers with payments on the Platform today.

Media contact
Simone Perryman, sperryman@cuscal.com.au

Cuscal becomes an accredited data recipient, opening the door to regulated data sharing and payments for Australian enterprise

Posted on September 23, 2022February 1, 2024 by Marketing Team

Sydney, 23 September 2022

Cuscal Limited, Australia’s largest industry provider of payment solutions for the Australian financial services sector, was granted accreditation to participate in the Consumer Data Right (CDR) as an unrestricted accredited data recipient by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) this week.

Announcing Cuscal’s accreditation, Jamie Leach, Domain Lead for Regulated Data Services at Cuscal said:

Accreditation at the unrestricted level is a critical pillar of our regulated data strategy. Following the successful implementation of solutions to support clients manage their ongoing CDR data holder obligations, accreditation allows us to develop further and evolve our service offering to support clients develop high-value data recipient use cases as they pursue greater internal efficiencies and enhance the customer experience they offer.

Kieran McKenna, Chief Risk Officer at Cuscal added:

With a mature Risk, Compliance and Governance structure in place, we are working at pace with the ACCC to complete the onboarding process to fast-track a future where we can support more organisations to participate in the CDR. As an ADI regulated by APRA, we have over 50 years of experience sponsoring clients into the highly regulated payments system. With CDR accreditation we will provide similar services as an intermediary, sponsoring enterprises to participate in the CDR ecosystem.

Enabling end-to-end digital commerce

With the Federal Government regulating data across the economy, Cuscal is focused on building a platform that simplifies access to the wider regulated data ecosystem, beginning with data sharing via the CDR and the newly launched payment method PayTo.

Commenting on Cuscal’s strategic investment in regulated data services, Jamie Leach said:

Uniquely positioned at the intersection of data and payments, accreditation as a data recipient builds upon our trusted industry position and heritage in payments and banking and will enable Cuscal to offer a depth and breadth of regulated data services to Australian enterprises that will be unrivalled in the market.

About Cuscal

For more than 50 years, Cuscal has championed competition in banking and payments in Australia. More recently, Cuscal has moved beyond banking and payments into the broader data economy. Drawing upon extensive experience managing payments data that is digital, regulated, must always be secure, and flows seamlessly between consumers and enterprise, Cuscal provides data holders and data recipients access to a suite of secure and robust capabilities for the collection, sharing, management and storage of data subject to CDR legislation.

Media contact
Simone Perryman, sshields@cuscal.com.au

PayTo for business. The always-on digital way for businesses to initiate real-time payments from customers’ bank accounts.

Posted on September 14, 2022October 26, 2023 by Marketing Team

The rollout of PayTo capabilities to online banking channels, with Great Southern Bank leading the way, has sharpened focus on ‘how’ and ‘why’ businesses should become initiating participants to enable real-time and future dated payments from their customers’ bank accounts.

In this post we look at how PayTo can help initiating businesses thrive in a digital economy with fast, reliable and secure payments that keeps money moving 24/7.

The case for PayTo

As an enabler of real-time digital commerce, PayTo supports a broad range of use cases, delivering tangible benefits for the initiating business, including:

Explicit customer authorisation before any payments can be processed from bank accounts, addressing one of its biggest payment challenges facing businesses today; the requirement for consent via Strong Customer Authentication to reduce the risk of fraud, unauthorised payments and chargebacks.

Message response times that are delivered in seconds, confirming that valid account details have been provided, that payment has been authorised by the account owner, and that funds are available at time of payment, improving the certainty of successful payment outcomes for the initiating business.

The real-time settlement of funds at time of payment to improve cashflow availability for reinvestment in the business.

From an operational perspective the data-rich ISO messaging capabilities of the NPP enables more precise transaction data to be included within payment initiation and clearing and settlement messages. Data that more accurately describes the terms of the payer customer’s authorisation, including; payment type (recurring, one-off or ad hoc), any ultimate creditor’s name, descriptions and creditor’s reference(s), all support the easier reconciliation of payments. This also provides richer data insights that businesses can use to tailor their products and services to optimise customer experience.

The format of PayTo mandates and the data that can be included offers significant benefits in terms of data quality and visibility, compared to the relatively opaque nature of direct debit arrangements established under the BECS Direct Entry system, particularly if the payment is being facilitated via an intermediary.

Taken individually, each feature of a PayTo mandate improves an aspect of the payment experience. Taken together they can help lower the total cost of payment acceptance for the initiating business.

How to connect to PayTo as a Payment Initiator or Initiating Business

Payment service providers, platforms and payment facilitators that process payments on behalf of other businesses, as well as high volume and high growth businesses that process their own payments, can connect to PayTo as a Payment Initiator through Cuscal, the market leader in NPP. Benefits include:

Only one access point required to initiate payments with all financial institutions connected to the NPP.
APIs supporting seamless integration and straight-through processes.
Structured data capabilities to support automated reconciliation.
Centralised, secure storage of PayTo mandates reducing the reputational risk from payments data breeches.

Other businesses can connect to PayTo as an Initiating Business through a Payment Initiator, benefiting from:

Real-time account validation when a mandate is created.
PayTo authorisation by the account owner through secure bank channels.
Real-time funds verification at the time of payment.
Real-time notification of payment outcomes.
Faster settlement compared to other payment methods.
Integration of notifications into customer service and support processes when a PayTo mandate is paused, changed or cancelled.

With PayTo now live in banking channels are you ready to transform your business with PayTo? To find out more about connecting to PayTo as a Payment Initiator, contact Cuscal.

Today’s foundations for tomorrow’s payments | Curious Thinkers 2022

Posted on August 12, 2022October 26, 2023 by Marketing Team

Nathan Churchward (Cuscal) moderates a session with Christian Westerlind Wigstrom (Monoova), Luke Fossett (GoCardless) and Marnie Ryan (NPPA)

As one of Cuscal’s key strategic priorities and a true leader in this space through our ongoing commitment with the NPPA, this session aims to reinforce the benefits of PayTo and to get clients excited that there will be take up of PayTo. The content will be aimed at sharing the benefits on the initiator side as well as demonstrating what’s important from a payer side – how do our banking clients position this as a competitive advantage with their customers?