As we all know, our world is constantly evolving, modernising and innovating, creating ways to make our day-to-day lives easier….. and banking is no exception. In 2018, ‘Open Banking’ was introduced in the UK, thanks to new legislation that simplifies payment transactions and protects your data. Open Banking allows only regulated organisations - such as fumopay - access to customer information & banking services that have historically only been accessible within your bank or between banking systems. By opening up such access in a secure manner, 3rd party organisations such as fumopay can accelerate innovation and build new services that take advantage of information & services to bring greater value to the banking customer. Banks have had the monopoly on mandating their services (and ever-rising fees) to customers for too long. Not only does Open Banking bring new competition directly to these banks, allowing fees to become more competitive, it also allows companies like fumopay to design solutions that can have a real impact on customers' daily lives. Whether you wish to consolidate all your bank accounts, savings and investment information in one app, or use open banking to pay faster and more securely using just your mobile device. With over 5 million (and counting) active users in the UK, Open Banking based applications and services are rapidly becoming commonplace in our society. The term ‘Open Banking’ is not a product or service, it’s a set of services working for you in the background, designed to bring efficiency, convenience, security and value to your daily lives.

2022 threw up a fair amount of uncertainty in many ways; most notably in UK politics and finance. With the cost of living crisis dominating the news, it has left a somewhat bleak outlook both in society and industry alike, with retail and SMEs arguably suffering the biggest blows. Somewhat ‘under the radar’ for many - has seen the rapid rise of ‘Pay by Bank’ which is based on the principles of Open Banking. Whilst Pay by Bank / Open Banking has enjoyed a steep spike amongst those ‘in the know’, much is being reported that a lack of education amongst the wider public has resulted in a hesitancy to adopt the new and contemporary way of processing payments - for both retailers and consumers. This, we must rectify, as there are enormous benefits of choosing ‘Pay by Bank’ to settle a transaction, this can, and will, help SMEs rectify the often crippling issues of late payments. ‘Pay by Bank’ transactions take place in real-time and require no credit or debit card details and thus provides near-elimination of online fraud with transactions authenticated in the customer's banking app. At fumopay - with ‘Pay by Bank’ at our core - we found ourselves at the crest of this wave. As 2022 unfolded, it became ever-clearer what our crusade would be, to improve both personal and business’ cash flow by enabling payments to be expedited quickly, safely, easily and cheaply, thus focusing us on improving SMEs and consumer’s financial landscapes by speeding up payments and unblocking their cashflow. Complimenting our mission to aid businesses expedite payments, innovative accounting software giant, Xero, have now partnered with fumopay to offer their users a Pay by Bank option. This integration process will be rolled-out to wider accounting software over the course of the year. As dawn breaks in 2023 we, at fumopay, pledge to use our voice, and platform, to educate and advise on the extensive benefits of adopting the Pay by Bank method, which, some might say, has been a rather opaque subject to date. This will go someway to prompt the discussion, improve awareness and reach our company’s overall ambition of bettering our society’s financial wellbeing.