Partner Spotlight: Optty

Stretching back three years, Optty and Volt’s partnership began – as so many fruitful fintech relationships do – on a well-known Amsterdam conference floor in early June.

Optty, a certified B Corporation with a strong presence in Australia, worked closely with merchants with specific use-case needs. Volt, which married a customer-first approach with a global footprint, was able to meet these needs.

And so was born a fruitful relationship that wasn’t just mutually beneficial to both parties, but to the merchants and consumers using Volt-powered account-to-account payments. And, whisper it quietly, but the successes and proof points may point to shifting payment trends Down Under and beyond.

Lincoln Dundas, Optty’s VP Global Partnerships & Enablement, gave the lowdown on the partnership story so far…

Linc, first off, give us an overview of who Optty are and what you do…

“In a nutshell we exist to simplify global payments. Our white-label platform gives PSPs and merchants access to 145 payment partners – including Volt – across 140 countries. I’m based in Sydney, and while we’re strong in Australia we’re actually a global company headquartered in Singapore.

“It’s a really exciting time for the company – in addition to recently welcoming our new CEO, Richard Miller, we’ve been securing new big-name partnerships and, specifically where Volt is concerned, working with some exciting new merchants. Which I’m sure we’ll discuss shortly!”

How long have Volt and Optty been partners?

“Since 2022, when we came across Volt at Money20/20 Europe. When Optty began we focused only on Buy Now, Pay Later, but we soon spotted a huge opportunity to cater to an emerging trend: account-to-account payments.

“We watched the rise of open banking in Europe and saw it becoming a bigger opportunity in Australia. But to us the value was how it became a global proposition – there’s PayTo in Australia and separate networks in Europe and the UK, but it didn’t seem like there was one brand that did the whole thing.

“It was really important to us that, if we expanded beyond BNPL, we’d need to work with a global player – someone that had an A2A solution no matter where you go. As we got to know the Volt team, it was clear that they were best equipped to give us what our partners needed.”

How has merchant adoption been?

“Speaking specifically for Australia, it’s going really, really well. We’ve successfully encroached on spaces where cards and BNPL have previously been dominant – with the recent Motorhome Republic announcement being a case in point.

“Adoption rates vary between verticals, with retail being an obvious example of one that starts slowly before picking up sustained traction. This doesn’t happen by itself; Volt’s customer-focused approach, which massively sets it apart from other providers, helps hugely in this regard.

“If you’re only focused on building the infrastructure, merchant adoption is slow by default. This trend is evident in Australia, where providers white-label NPP infrastructure, applying their own branding to the core services. In Australia, Volt has continued to deliver on its market leading end-user experience, which we’ve seen with the recent success of City Beach – a household name here for surfwear.

“Volt has an opportunity in Australia to be the brand that’s most associated with PayTo. ‘PayTo by Volt’ could become part of the vernacular, which is quite cool. ‘I’ll just Volt that’ is something I can see consumers saying, with Optty helping to drive this shift via our merchant integrations.”

Does Volt’s solution play into wider payment trends you’re noticing at Optty?

“I think open banking and A2A have always been viewed in a B2B way. Now we’re seeing a split between brands who want to stay B2B and others that want to have a consumer-facing proposition. The B2C side is starting to come out of the woodwork. Optty is well positioned to facilitate broader adoption in Australia by leveraging our white-label capability.

“From an APM perspective, real-time payments are key. We’re seeing huge demand among clients with large merchants sitting behind them. They want to be able to get paid right now, which isn’t something they’ve had access to before. It’s something we’re going to continue to drive, because it’s a request we get all the time.”

What are you most excited about from the Volt partnership going forward?

“Volt is becoming increasingly part of the conversation when we interact with partners – purely because of the questions they’re asking. They want to know about tokenisation, recurring payments, billing etc. Any time a client brings up something, there’s always something Volt is working on that can help.

“Being ahead of the curve makes my job easier down the track when I’m selling a complete payments platform. When a client says ‘I have these potential use cases and I need x, y and z’, I know that I’ve got a partner that can do it.”

Interested in integrating open banking into your payments stack? Find out more about partnering with Volt.