There are few things more vital to get right than renting, according to an update from UK-based Fintech firm Modulr.
Whether it’s a landlord, letting agency or tenant, it “involves an enormous amount of money and the emotional weight of roofs over people’s heads.” Modulr adds that this is “one of the last processes anybody wants to have problems with, as it can be a source of huge anxiety.” That’s why it’s so important “to have a smooth, reliable and transparent system that works for everyone in the chain,” Modulr notes in a blog post.
The firm adds that they’ve all “had experience of how complicated and time-consuming a process renting can be for everyone involved.” Lots of manual paperwork “being sent back and forward with applications, references and contracts.”
Enter Goodlord, with their mission “to provide the best-renting experience in the world.”
As explained in the update from Modulr, Goodlord uses technology “to create a frictionless rental journey for tenants, landlords, and agents.” They focus “on automating compliance, saving time, and providing value through key partnerships to offer rental-aligned products, all pulled into a single streamlined platform.”
A key part of this rental journey “involves payments.” Goodlord had to contend with collecting and reconciling “a huge number of rent and deposit payments, and therefore handling a vast amount of personal information that needs to be verified quickly.”
Finding the right partner to handle the volume, speed and complexity involved in these payments was “absolutely vital.” And that’s why Goodlord “chose to work with Modulr.”
Modulr provided Goodlord with the ability “to create instant e-money accounts via an API, giving them an easy and quick way to reconcile payments and create individual ledgers.” This significantly “sped up the processes, with the automation reducing both time and the likelihood of errors.”
This was also “straightforward to implement.”
Ali Venerandi, Head of Payments at Goodlord, says:
“The e-money accounts helped us solve the reconciliation process very easily. API-led was a must-have and implementing the proof of concept initially only took one week, thanks to the easy to use documentation.”
Modulr’s direct membership of the Faster Payments Scheme and GBP “account issuance helped Goodlord provide the service they needed to differentiate themselves.”
Ali added:
“We’re able to automate over 70% of our core payments, saving lots of time and making the process for our customers much smoother. Being powered by Modulr also allowed us to create systems to collect and pay out rent in a much easier way than traditional methods.”
Since they started working with Modulr, Goodlord also “started using Confirmation of Payee – a process that helps reduce fraud by checking the account details of a payment recipient (payee) with their bank before a payment to them is made.”
With the Goodlord and Modulr partnership providing a rock-solid foundation for the future, Goodlord has big ambitions that Modulr “looks forward to working together on.”
As mentioned in the update:
“We intend to roll out our new rent collection and accounts product to all of our customers, becoming one of the largest payment processors in the UK. In the longer-term, we’re looking forward to Modulr continuing their international expansion, so we can receive payments in GBP from any country.”
The Goodlord and Modulr partnership has “meant good things for tenants, landlords and agencies. And it shows what the power of embedded payments can do.”