PayBright speaks to how faster, data-rich payments will change the buy now, pay later retail experience

With the introduction of Canada’s new real-time payments system in 2022, the Real-Time Rail, Canadian retailers of all sizes and their customers stand to benefit from faster, data-rich payments. We spoke with Wayne Pommen, CEO of PayBright, about the opportunity that payments Modernization and subsequent innovations will have on the installment payments market, retailers and the shopping experience.

To get things started, can you share an understanding of PayBright’s buy now, pay later service offering and the value it offers to retailers and shoppers?
We’ve taken the retail credit model and made it very fast, simple and customer friendly – and we’ve integrated it seamlessly with both in-store retail and ecommerce sites. It’s designed to be a fully integrated payment method that’s part of the customer’s shopping experience.

For retailers, our offering enables them to provide more payment options to customers at checkout – translating into increased customer traffic and sales, higher repeat purchase rates and larger value purchases because customers have that additional interest free spending power. Meanwhile, their customers – shoppers – get additional spending power from us at exactly the moment of purchase when they need it, and are able to finalize their purchases in a matter of seconds.

When it comes to the introduction of the Real-Time Rail, how do you think this new platform will support the evolution of your industry and your organization?
Every day, we make a multitude of payments in all different directions – to and from consumers, to and from retailers, and to and from financial institutions that fund our business. The fact that these payments will become faster and more data rich is only a good thing. The innovation that comes after that, and what that leads us to, is the gravy on top. Today we make our business work with existing tools – but when you take a step back and ask how much better it could be if our counterparties didn’t have to wait for funds or have to reconcile what a payment is for, you realize how helpful this will all be.

With more information tied to each payment, our retailers will be able to more quickly figure out which payment is for what, saving them time. Further, enabling the movement of money more quickly is a benefit to cash flow for small to mid-sized retailers.

I imagine that in one to two years there will be businesses that we never heard of creating services and products we never thought of that leverage the Real-Time Rail.