Less Chasing, More Collecting: What’s New in Payments in ezyCollect
Webinar transcript
Speakers: Ricardo (CPMO, ezyCollect) • Nick Cooper (CFO, ezyCollect / VP Global Payments, Sidetrade) • Nana (Head of Finance & Business Insights, ezyCollect)
Introductions
[00:01] Ricardo
Right, so as we were just talking about — today we want to walk you through the changes we’ve been making on the payments side of the platform. There’s quite a bit that’s happened in recent months, and at the end, a quick sneak peek at what we’re doing in terms of incorporating AI into the platform, plus making sure the feature set available to you and your business is better than ever. It’s a big one, so we won’t go deep on it today; we’ll have another session down the line.
Before we get into that, some quick intros. I’m hosting today — I’m Ricardo, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at ezyCollect. I managed to drag some experts into this webinar with me, so I’ll let them introduce themselves. Nick, do you want to go first?
[01:08] Nick
Thanks, Ricardo. Hi everyone — Nick Cooper, CFO of ezyCollect. Following our recent acquisition by the Sidetrade Group, I’ve picked up responsibilities across the organisation as VP of Global Payments. We’re bringing you some great new products today, so get excited. Nana, over to you.
[01:28] Nana
Thanks, Nick. Hi everyone, I’m Nana, Head of Finance and Business Insights at ezyCollect. What makes this launch so special to me is that our finance team has actually been the guinea pig for all these features. Not only have we been testing the functionality, we’ve also been helping shape the initial prototypes. I’m really excited to share the good news with you today. Back to you, Ricardo.
[01:52] Ricardo
Thanks, Nana. Just to reassure anyone watching — while they are the guinea pigs, they do get rewarded. We generally buy them lunch.
We don’t put them in a cage or anything like that.
Agenda
[02:14] Ricardo
A quick agenda. First, the new payments platform experience — we’ve spent time revamping the UX of the payments portal. Then PayTo, the newer rails for bank direct debits that’s been rolling out over the past few years with the NPP. After that, Google Pay and Apple Pay. Then early payment discounts and late payment penalties. And finally, a small sneak peek at what’s coming for workflows and AI. We’ll finish with a Q&A.
1. New Payments Platform Experience
[03:00] Ricardo
The flags on the top left will appear across the webinar to indicate which regions get each update. PayTo, for example, is Australia-specific, but some features are global. This first one — the new payments experience — is a global feature. If you’re an existing client, you’ll get this upgrade by the end of the quarter. If you’re not yet a client, this is the platform you’d get once you sign up.
Let me share my screen. If you’ve seen SimplyPaid before, you can probably tell it looks a little different. We hadn’t spent much time on how it looked and felt or on the customer experience for quite a while. It was about time to do something about that, because this portal represents your business to your customer, and it represents ezyCollect to you and your customers as well. We wanted the little details in the payment journey to be enhanced for your users.
[05:00] Ricardo
You’ll see lots of small details that help the user understand what’s going on. There are many more tooltips across the platform — some pointing to new features Nana will talk about later. In general, it’s more mobile-friendly, friendlier for long invoice tables (you don’t have to scroll all the way down to see the payment bar), and so on.
[05:48] Ricardo
One feature I don’t think everyone is aware of is "View Payment Plans" — this is different from buy-now-pay-later. Within ezyCollect, you can configure different plan structures to make available to your customers; they can then configure the final installment process and pay any invoices on a schedule if they want to. The forms have also been updated; there’s an animation with the card, plus lots of detail across every page and function of the platform. We’d love for you to use it and give us feedback so we can keep improving.
[07:28] Ricardo
This session is recorded, so as soon as it ends it’ll be sent to everyone participating — you can replay it. If you’re interested in seeing more detail, we’ll give you a link to request a one-on-one walkthrough as well.
[07:55] Ricardo
Question from Shaka about additional costs — Nick, I’ll let you take this one.
[07:55] Nick
No additional costs — it’s your current rate for card fees. Whatever your rate is today to transact a Visa or Mastercard is the same rate to transact Apple Pay and Google Pay. Nothing new there.
2. PayTo (Australia)
[08:53] Ricardo
We’ll split PayTo into two parts. First I’ll show what the flow looks like, because PayTo is quite different from a traditional bank transfer. Then I’ll hand to Nick to explain the advantages and what to watch for — especially in Australia with the changes coming to surcharging and BECS.
[09:23] Ricardo
A question from Nicola — can installment payments be set up for specific customers, not a blanket plan? If I recall correctly, yes — you can set it at a global level or at a customer level. I’ll confirm and send you an answer after the webinar.
[09:23] Nick
And there was one around supplier branding — will it still be available on the portal? Yes, nothing changes on that front. Just a new look and feel sitting behind it.
[10:18] Ricardo
On to PayTo. In the demo, you can see this file has PayTo activated. When you go into bank transfer, in principle everything looks similar — you’ll see some mentions of PayTo — but everything changes once you click Pay Now. We’ve built a better animation flow to explain how PayTo works, because with PayTo the customer has to approve the transfer in their bank app. That makes every transaction much more secure: for anything to go ahead, the customer has to log into their bank app and approve it, and only they should have access to that bank account.
We’ve built a guide in case they’ve never used it before — simulating what will happen. They’ll get a message from the bank app, log in, see the value of the transaction, and approve it. Once authorised, the system automatically captures the approval, processes the transaction, and sends them to a receipt page. The receipt page has the transaction information, but with PayTo they also get a receipt inside their bank app where they approved it — better visibility for them overall. There are more benefits, so I’ll hand to Nick.
[12:27] Nick
PayTo has been talked about for about four or five years, with a big push to adoption around 18 to 24 months ago. The reason there’s been some lag is that out in the market today, only about 50% of business accounts are activated for PayTo. You’ll probably be more familiar with the retail version — PayID — which is at over 90% adoption.
That’s why adoption hasn’t been as strong as the NPP — Australian Payments Plus, the program that put this infrastructure in place — would like. But the major banks are mostly there: three of the four are already live. Eligibility on accounts is being filtered through over time, but the technology is in place. NAB is the last one dragging a little, but they’ve committed to mid-2026, so not too far away.
Not every account is automatically switched on or eligible for PayTo activation, but if you ask your bank, they’re pretty open to getting it up and running. As far as rails are concerned, yes, it replaces the old, tired BECS rails we all know and love. But while it’s in rollout, there are still some transaction limit constraints. Historically, BECS is fairly unlimited in valuation — you’re normally throttled by your provider, but the actual value through the rail is open. With PayTo at the moment, it’s up to about $20–$25k per transaction, and that can vary by institution. Just be mindful of that as it rolls out.
It’s real, and it makes sense. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Amazon went live with PayID and will be rolling out PayTo as well. It’s a real rail, and it’s fantastic in terms of real-time capability.
[15:12] Ricardo
Nick, we also added some features around those limitations. We capture both a PayTo and a BECS mandate for direct debits, so we can fall back to BECS if PayTo doesn’t go through — for example, above a max transaction value.
[15:12] Nick
That’s right. And the way we’ve implemented PayTo, it’s a true account-to-account transfer — the confirmation of payment is super fast. Some other implementations of what people call "PayTo" still go through a payment provider’s float account, which can delay settlement. So if you see something called PayTo but with delayed settlement — sometimes end-of-day or next-day — that means it’s collected in real time but settled via a float. Our implementation is a direct account-to-account transfer with no delay.
[16:38] Ricardo
Good point of awareness. If you’re looking at PayTo and you see settlement delays into your bank account, that’s something outside the PayTo idea — that’s on the processor. With ours it should be in your account almost immediately, or at worst same day.
[16:38] Nick
A great question from Jim: is PayTo available in New Zealand? Unfortunately, the organisation responsible for bringing PayTo to life is part of the Australian RBA infrastructure, so it will come down to NZ’s willingness to move forward. They’re investigating, but it’s not an independent route that can simply be picked up and carried over. I’ll come back to you with the latest on where NZ is at — but for now, it’s Australia only.
[17:14] Nick
Another question — should PayTo be enabled in our company’s bank account or in the customer’s? It’s the customer’s. Their account needs to be enabled to be pulled in real time. Unlike the old BECS, which is a pull payment into your account, PayTo is a two-way transaction. So if the customer’s account isn’t enabled for PayTo, you won’t be able to pull it in real time — it’ll default to BECS (the traditional two- to three-day rail) by an auto redirect on our side. Nothing for you to do.
[18:40] Ricardo
We’ve got about 10 minutes left and a lot more to get through — we’ll do the rest of the Q&A at the end. For anyone who can stay on, we’ll answer all the questions then.
[18:56] Nick
This next bit is very timely. You’ll all have heard about the changes to surcharging rules in Australia: as of 1 October, surcharging is no longer allowed. So those costs will be yours to bear. Amex is outside that, and — funnily enough — Amex and PayTo BECS fees can still be surcharged for the moment. But Visa and Mastercard — if that’s your predominant method of transacting and you’re currently surcharging — those costs will be absorbed by you.
So anything you can do to move your customers to PayTo, the saving and margin go directly back to you. You’ve got the same benefit of fast settlement — faster than BECS, can be instantaneous — so you’ve got cash to reinvest, and you’re also saving on the margin those fees would otherwise be hitting.
And it’s all timely because in 2030 the RBA has said it’s retiring the BECS rails — the very old rails. It’s time to move ahead. Three and a half years sounds like a long time, but there’s a lot of existing BECS direct debits that need to be migrated. Don’t do it on someone else’s timeline — do it on yours when you can. Just be aware: people need to start motoring to migrate things across.
3. Google Pay & Apple Pay (Global)
[20:47] Ricardo
Next, Google Pay and Apple Pay. As you can see by the flags, also globally available. Nick?
[20:47] Nick
At the start of May, we activated Google Pay and Apple Pay across all our payment accounts. It’s too soon to share platform-wide results, but the reason we activated this was based on analysing dropout rates on mobile devices when users land on clients’ payment portals. We were seeing decline or drop-off on mobile — maybe a customer’s out walking the dog and has 10 or 20 minutes to pay an invoice. They’d view the invoice but drop off before paying, compared to higher completion rates on desktop.
So we thought — what changes this? One, there’s some rework of the mobile experience, which Ricardo will show in a moment. Two, availability of preferred wallets. When you shop online, what do you want as a consumer? Ease. A one-touch experience with your preferred method. The same concept applies to paying invoices.
Activating Apple Pay and Google Pay also brings security features we’re already well versed in from personal use — two-factor authentication via Face ID, the reliability of the wallet (always there, no scrambling for your card or CVC), and the choice to swap between Apple Pay and Google Pay. Really beneficial.
[22:40] Ricardo
And we have an actual user here — Nana pays some invoices every now and then and she’s a big fan.
[22:40] Nana
Yes, absolutely. In fact, a few ezyCollect clients have become our suppliers, and I personally process payments through the ezyCollect portal using Apple Pay. It’s really convenient for on-the-go payments or cash on delivery. Don’t even get me started — I could talk about it for hours. It’s an amazing feature.
[23:29] Ricardo
We’ll keep you talking then, Nana. Sorry, we need to rush through a little. Moving on to early payment discounts and late payment penalties.
4. Early Payment Discounts & Late Payment Penalties
[23:52] Nana
As Nick mentioned earlier, improving collection is the ultimate goal — but it’s not just about making the payment side easier; it’s also about encouraging the right payment behaviours. That’s why we’re excited to introduce two additional features: early payment discounts and late payment penalties.
You can now set up structured payment policies within the ezyCollect platform to drive customer behaviour. With early payment discounts, you can automatically reward customers who pay before the due date — for example, "pay within 3 days, receive 3% discount" or "pay within 5 days, receive 2% discount". Small discounts, surfaced at the right time, can have a huge impact.
[24:58] Nana
On the other side, we also support late payment penalties — creating accountability for overdue invoices by applying penalties when payments are late. For example, "5 days late incurs a 3% penalty". The beauty is the flexibility: you can stack or compound rules, combine early payment discounts with penalties, and run special promotions or campaigns for a set period — even multiple campaigns at the same time. The world is your oyster.
In fact, our marketing team has already rolled out an early payment discount campaign for all our invoicing clients, and we’ve seen amazing results.
[25:45] Ricardo
How do your customers see these offers?
[25:45] Nana
Your customers access the ezyCollect payments portal as usual. From there, they see the full list of open invoices with any applicable discounts or penalties clearly displayed and explained. The entire offering process is automated through the platform — ezyCollect does all the heavy lifting. As your customers select invoices to pay, the platform automatically calculates the final amount, including any discounts or penalties applied. They proceed as normal by clicking Pay Now, and we process the invoice with full transparency.
Your customer also receives a receipt that clearly outlines all charges — the original amount, any early payment discount, late payment fees, or card surcharge. Super simple, easy. If you’d like to learn more, please reach out to us. Back to you, Ricardo, for even more.
5. Sneak Peek: Workflows & AI
[27:32] Ricardo
I forgot to add the links for booking demos earlier, but I’ll put one down now — if you’re interested, reach out and we’ll get in touch about any of the features we discussed.
[28:00] Ricardo
We’re not done yet — there’s more. This is also a global update, and it’s big enough that today is really just a sneak peek. It’s a package of improvements and upgrades to the platform that’s significantly larger than what we’ve discussed. Today the goal is just to show you something — you can create conspiracy theories about what it is. Let me share my screen.
What I’ll say is: this is the workflow — the new way of configuring your chasing communications. It looks quite similar to how ezyCollect works today — a few steps, a few actions like email. But it looks like there’s something more here. There are new ways of configuring workflows coming down the line, and quite a few more options coming with it. A lot of this is AI-related — this is Amy, our agentic AI — and there’ll be more you can add here.
[29:26] Nick
I like it.
[29:26] Ricardo
If you’re interested in this, we’ll have a big webinar in July. And if you’d like to be one of the first to use it, we’re creating an expression-of-interest list — sign up and you’ll definitely be one of the first to see and use it in your file if you’re a client.
[30:10] Ricardo
We’re already a minute past, so I don’t want to keep everyone. We’ll do the Q&A now — if you can stay, please do; otherwise, the recording will be sent at the end of the webinar. Anyone who can’t stay, feel free to drop off.
Q&A
[30:35] Ricardo
Nick, I have a good one for you. Nicholas asks about direct debit for leasing payments over extended periods — 48 to 60 months. Does the customer need to approve every payment over the contract term if they’re using PayTo?
[30:35] Nick
No. The PayTo mandate is created in line with the payment plan or extended period. We’d need to capture the specific use case you’re trying to run, but in theory, the mandate for PayTo is provisioned in line with that leasing payment agreement. It will work natively with what’s already available. Hopefully that answers it — if not, let us know.
[31:33] Nick
Another — can customers pay with Amex and get points? Yes, if Amex is activated within your account and that’s their preferred method. A lot of businesses use Amex for the rewards points — it’s a very rewarding system. That’s not points we issue, though. Ricardo and I have talked about a reward program; maybe down the road. But yes, that would be with Amex directly.
[32:22] Nick
Jordan asked about the PayTo fee. We’re still working through that. Like everything else, it’ll be based on number of transactions, usage and so on. It’s likely to be similarly priced to direct debit today. It’s slightly more expensive given the real-time nature and the work that’s gone into building it. Jordan, we can pick that up with you and price it out based on what you’re using today.
[32:54] Ricardo
When you say "structure like BECS", what does that mean compared to cards, for example?
[32:54] Nick
Fair point. A fixed-fee element. BECS today, as many of you know, sits anywhere between about 30, 40 to 50 cents. In certain use cases there’s also a variable fee placed on transactions over a certain value. We’ll be looking to have something similar in place for PayTo. It’ll be on a case-by-case basis.
[33:22] Ricardo
Nana did a great job answering some questions, but a few more. "Will Amy be able to do outbound calls?" Yes — the plan is for Amy to do outbound and receive calls. When we have the demo, we’ll share what a call made by Amy looks like, and also how she can handle inbound calls and provide answers to your customers.
[33:45] Nick
Just as a hook — we’ve been testing and practising with it here. It’s pretty amazing stuff.
[34:10] Ricardo
One more on AI — not Nick’s wheelhouse. The AI has no access at all to anything sensitive. I saw the crypto attack via Grok — there’s no chance of anything like that happening here, which also means the AI will not be processing any transactions. It’s more of an assistant-type AI to help with jobs that take time from your day-to-day, or to make them more efficient. And we’ll introduce escalation to humans — not every customer will be happy to talk to an AI, so there’ll always be a way to escalate.
[35:02] Nick
Brilliant.
[35:26] Ricardo
I think we’ve gone through all of them. Thanks, everyone — really appreciate that there’s still quite a few of you in the webinar minutes past time. I hope to hear from everyone soon. And thanks Nick and Nana for joining me today — I know you had very important things to do, but this is one of them.
[35:51] Nick
Pleasure. Thanks for having us.
[35:51] Ricardo
Thanks, everyone. Bye.