CaixaBank has exceeded 250,000 instant bill collection transactions for companies via the SEPA Request To Pay system.
The bank, which in June 2023 became the first in Europe to be approved to operate with this system, has now “activated the first commercial service created under the new system.”
The service makes it easier for companies to “collect unpaid direct debit bills that are returned to the sender.”
When the company’s system receives a returned bill, CaixaBank’s “Request To Pay” service automatically sends a “payment request” to the customer.
The customer then receives it directly in their digital banking service, with all the security guarantees, and can decide “when to make the payment within the period established in the request, as well as the account to charge the amount to.”
If the amount of the payment request is €15,000 or less, the system handles it as an immediate transfer, which “reaches the account of the company receiving the payment within a maximum of 10 seconds.”
For payments above €15,000, the system handles it “as an ordinary transfer, which is paid on the next business day.”
Carrefour was one of the first customers to use the service, “starting in April 2024, and is seeing an outstanding success rate.”
Around 30% of the requests issued are paid with the “Request To Pay” system, and debtors are accepting this service as “a normal and secure payment process.”
The service can also adapt to companies of “different sectors and sizes with high success rates.”
Technology and innovation are vital for CaixaBank, and in the last couple of years, CaixaBank has become an international firm focused on financial services and “innovative payment methods.”
In fact, CaixaBank was reportedly the banking institution carrying out the “first” instant transfer transaction once the system was launched.
Another key moment in its track record in the field of pioneering experiences in payment methods came when in 2022 CaixaBank was selected by the European Central Bank (ECB) to prepare “a future launch of the digital euro and co-develop a prototype wallet for P2P person-to-person payments.”
CaixaBank claims that it has the “largest” digital customer base within the Spanish financial sector with 11.8 million users of its digital banking service, and the bank “works every day to develop new models that enable it to respond to the demands and needs of its customers and bring products, services and financial culture closer to all of society.”
In addition, CaixaBank, via its subsidiary CaixaBank Payments & Consumer, is said to be the “leading” bank in payment methods in the Iberian market.
In this digitization process, the bank, which has its own technology subsidiary, CaixaBank Tech, and multidisciplinary teams that “take innovation to every corner of the organization, promotes projects based on new technologies like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, app development, big data.”
All these technologies provide its advisers with further and better resources to help their customers, drive the “customization of their commercial offer, with the aim of improving customer linkage, develop new financial services and streamline decision-making processes.”