London, UK, 6 February 2024 – Ant International, a digital payment and financial services leader dedicated to building an inclusive and sustainable global commerce ecosystem, is expanding its existing partnership with Yapily, the leading European open banking platform to introduce Europe’s first-ever commercial variable recurring payments (VRPs) for e-commerce via Open Banking on mobile payment platforms.
This new payment method debuts first on HungryPanda, the leading Asian food delivery platform, offering a more convenient and seamless option for customers making mobile payments. This launch includes both commercial VRP “One Click Payment” and standard Open Banking payment “Pay by Bank”, powered by Antom, Ant International’s global merchant payment processing solution.
Starting today, HungryPanda users in the UK can elevate their food delivery experience by placing orders via their mobile devices and seamlessly completing payments directly from their bank accounts. This streamlined payment process not only enhances user satisfaction but also provides merchants with the added benefit of reduced transaction costs.
Implementing open banking changes for mobile payments
The deployment of Open Banking solutions marks the latest development of Ant International’s partnership with Yapily to explore and implement Open Banking technologies on mobile payment platforms. It intends to enable consumers who bank with UK financial institutions to make payments to merchants across the world via Antom, directly from their bank accounts, with a smooth and secure payment experience. The launch will benefit its UK customers, who are mobile-savvy and prefer convenient digital payment options.
This collaboration marks the first step of a wider roll-out of Open Banking technologies to more mobile services. Globally, Antom supports merchants in over 40 countries and provides them with a one-stop, vertical-specific digital payment solutions. Open Banking enables UK merchants to benefit from the Antom global digital payment solution using their preferred bank account.
Pietro Candela, Ant International’s Head of Business Development in Europe said: “The UK and Europe is on the front lines of open banking. We’re pleased to continue our collaboration with Yapily to develop payment solutions which bring value and convenience to European consumers and global merchants, including Hungry Panda, and we’re excited to see continued adoption of this technology with our partner merchants as it scales across the platform.”
Stefano Vaccino, CEO and Founder of Yapily said: “We’re delighted to bring the benefits of open banking and commercial VRP to Europe. VRP technology is faster and more secure when making payments, giving an improved experience for both merchants and customers. By innovating finance in this way, we can power a more open and productive economy to the benefit of businesses and consumers. As a London-founded fintech, we’re delighted that the UK is the first country to enable this technology of the future.”
Kelu Liu, CEO and Founder of HungryPanda said: “Our partnership with Ant International enables HungryPanda customers in the UK to order their favourite dishes more conveniently and securely using a preferred payment wallet.”
About HungryPanda
Founded in 2017, HungryPanda is currently the largest overseas Asian food delivery platform and the only food delivery platform to rank in Deloitte’s 2021 UK Technology Fast 50. Starting in Nottingham, U.K., HungryPanda has expanded to more than 80 cities in 10 countries: the U.K., France, Italy, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Currently, HungryPanda works with over 80,000 riders, 100,000 merchants and serves over 6 million users worldwide. This year, HungryPanda sets sights on $1 billion in gross transaction volume. For more information visit www.hungrypanda.co.
About Yapily
Yapily is Europe’s leading open banking infrastructure platform solving a fundamental problem in financial services today: access.
It securely connects its customers to thousands of European banks allowing them to access financial data and initiate payments. In this way, Yapily enables innovative companies to embed the power of open banking into their products and services, creating better and fairer financial services for everyone.
Yapily’s customers range from disruptive fintech to industry leaders operating in a number of verticals. It counts Intuit Quickbooks, Pleo, and American Express among hundreds of businesses using its platform today. To date, Yapily has raised $69.4 million in funding and continues to scale across Europe.
About Antom
Ant International’s Antom is a leading provider of payment processing services to merchants worldwide. Antom provides one-stop, vertical-specific digital payment solutions to meet the payment needs for merchants of all sizes. Antom currently supports merchants in over 40 countries, including, amongst others, the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, United States, and the EU countries, and offers over 250 payment methods globally.