One of the most interesting developments in digital commerce has been the growth in subscription services. The model itself isn’t new, and businesses in areas like the media, consumer or business software, or health and fitness have offered either fixed term of open-ended subscription options for years. What has changed has been the extension of this approach into a wide range of different types of retail. Today there are subscription options for the delivery of most things, including everything from beauty products, flowers and coffee beans to meal boxes and surplus baked goods. These models have become extremely popular, and this is a growing revenue opportunity for banks.

Nuapay is a European provider of account-to-account payment services to clients including PSPs, payment processors, banks, and large companies. It has a particular strength in long-established areas of the market such as billing but has more recently developed its offerings in the open banking space. Its Authenticated Mandate product is one such proposition. It delivers against the recurring payment use case by using open banking to address the frictions in having a customer complete a Direct Debit mandate. As a result, business customers can benefit from the economics of accepting payments via Direct Debit (which are typically cheaper than via a payment card CPA or digital wallet) while still offering consumers a strong digital experience.

Celent's takeaways from a recent in-depth briefing are captured in this Solution Brief. In our view, banks looking to enhance their payment offerings to business customers should consider the Authenticated Mandate product when evaluating new options around subscription payments and Direct Debits.