Australia is on the cusp of a digital revolution that will transform its financial services.
The legacy Bulk Electronic Clearing System, used for electronic debit and credit payment transactions, is in the process of being phased out, and will be officially retired in 2030.
It is being replaced by the New Payments Platform (NPP), an open access infrastructure for fast payments in Australia that first launched in early 2018.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernise payments in Australia and for local tech startups to get on board earlier and capitalise on the new technologies to assist companies and consumers.
One of these tech firms looking to get in on the ground floor is Zepto, a pioneer in account-to-account payment solutions for large organisations.
Zepto offers a real-time, account-to-account payment solution for large companies, helping them move away from legacy systems which can sometimes take days for transactions to clear.
With the Zepto platform, its customers can move, settle and reconcile payments in just seconds, every single day of the year.
The company offers access to the existing BECS Direct Entry System, which is currently being phased out, and the NPP, through a single API integration.
This allows client businesses to use a toolkit of various payment solutions to tailor payment flows for their own needs, needing just their own bank accounts.
Zepto Payments is a finalist in the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence for Software Innovation. You can secure your tickets for the black-tie gala event here. The Software Innovation category is sponsored by Technology One.
Zepto was launched in 2018 by four skydiving entrepreneurs in Byron Bay. The team directly experienced the frustrations that come with running a business on legacy payment systems, finding this slow, expensive and not suited to their agile business.
Using this direct experience, the team began developing software to enable companies to freely come up with an account-to-account payment experience that is actually matched to how their business functions.
Taking an engineers-first lens, the Zepto offering is natural and intuitive, and compatibility with both new and old tech stacks.
In 2022, the company closed a $25 million Series A funding round led by AirTree and Decade Partners. In the same year, the company became the first non-bank entity to be approved as an NPP-connect institution.
This means it was now able to connect its customers directly into the new NPP PayTo service, which facilitates real-time payments from customer bank accounts.
Zepto has enjoyed compound annual growth of 275 percent over the last three years, and is now processing more than 80 million transactions each year, worth about $50 billion in payment value.
The fintech has also partnered with digital delivery company Ozedi to build a connection between the superannuation transaction network and the NPP, helping businesses to securely make superannuation contributions in real-time.
This came shortly after the federal government announced that from July 2026 employers will be required to pay the superannuation of its employees at the same time as wages.
Looking for brand exposure in front of Australia’s tech ecosystem? Purchase a table of 10 for the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence and have your logo displayed on screens across the venue and in the event programme as a table sponsor.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence are supported by: Australian Computer Society, Investment NSW, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Technology Council of Australia, TechnologyOne, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program, Reason Group, Q-CTRL, University of New South Wales, and IP Australia.
Protecting your great ideas with intellectual property (IP) rights can lead to lasting benefits for your growing business. IP refers to creations of the mind, such as a brand, logo, invention, design or artistic work. Head to the IP Australia website to find out more about IP, and how it might help your business.
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