Newly released research shows that chasing late payments is potentially costing New Zealand $1.5b per year in operational efficiencies.
The role of merchants, retailers and other businesses selling directly to the consumer, cannot be overstated in New Zealand’s economy. Retail sales reached nearly $100 billion in 2023. Factoring in total sector classifications in which merchants operate, the figure grows to about $449 billion.
The research, commissioned by Māori owned and led digital payments solution provider, BlinkPay, which included surveying 400 New Zealand businesses across a range of sectors. The research revealed 44.3% of respondents citing late payments were a critical problem, disrupting cash flow and creating operational bottlenecks, while 39.5% felt merchant service fees were too high, eroding already thin margins.
Smith argues that with the rollout of open banking in New Zealand, many of the revenue collection pain points that affect both large and small retailers in the country will be a thing of the past.
“Our findings drive a call to action for businesses to embrace innovations that can alleviate the payment-related challenges businesses face. Online and in minutes businesses can add BlinkPay to their websites as a payment option. Agreements with ASB, Westpac, BNZ, and ANZ, mean that customers' money is taken directly from their accounts and received in the merchant’s bank account that day,” continued Smith
Dr John Small, Chair of the NZ Commerce Commission, said, “I am grateful to BlinkPay for publicly sharing their primary research on payments pain points. This work will be of interest to the broader payments/fintech ecosystem, and to our own efforts to promote and enable innovative solutions. As I have been saying to anyone who will listen, there are great things brewing in the Aotearoa payments sector that will reduce costs and add value by solving problems you may not have even identified yet”.
Interested parties can download a copy of the report, Unlocking Potential: Open Banking's Answer to Merchant Payment Challenges in Aotearoa here.
How Blink PayNow works
At the checkout on a BlinkPay-integrated website, customers select Blink PayNow and choose their bank. They are then redirected to their bank's portal, where payment details are pre-filled.
After reviewing and confirming the payment from their mobile banking app, customers are returned to the merchant’s site with a successful payment notification.
No credit card details, no lengthy forms, just a few clicks.
Making it cheaper to do business
In addition to providing a user-friendly, secure and accessible payment option for customers, businesses using BlinkPay will also benefit from cheap fees. BlinkPay’s standard fee is 0.95% per transaction, capped at NZ $3. There is no cost to consumers who pay through the service.