Financial app building platform TrueLayer has long been using the power of open banking to facilitate payment activities. Today, the U.K.-based company is taking another step to make the online payments experience even easier with the launch of a new payments product, PayDirect.

PayDirect combines open banking with Europe’s payment rails to offer a customizable solution for instant payments, instant payouts, and smoother payment reconciliation.

“PayDirect builds on our open banking expertise to streamline onboarding, pay-in and payout, to help operators deliver an experience that is fit for the digital age,” said the company’s Chief Product Officer, Ossama Soliman.

Because PayDirect relies on open banking and Europe’s fast payment rails, the solution circumvents many of the headaches associated with traditional card payments. Cards can expire, require manual entry, and are subject to spending limits. These hurdles generally result in an 85% success rate. PayDirect, in comparison, has a 96% success rate. PayDirect also eliminates chargebacks and reduces fraud by authenticating via biometrics directly with the consumer’s bank.

Here’s how the checkout experience works:

Financial services companies that use PayDirect benefit from a single interface for onboarding users, receiving instant deposits into their account, and providing instant withdrawals. Customers, on the other hand, benefit from low risk of fraud, faster refunds and withdrawals, less false positives during fraud checks, and a faster checkout experience.

Founded in 2016, TrueLayer is best known for its payments API that helps financial services companies provide online payments, bill payments, and account top-ups.

The company has offices in five countries across the globe, including London, Sydney, Milan, Hong Kong and Dublin. Francesco Simoneschi is co-founder and CEO.

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Beijing-based ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, launched a mobile payments service for Douyin, which is China’s version of TikTok.

The new mobile payments service, Douyin Pay, will compete with the likes of Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s Alipay. “The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” a Douyin representative told Reuters.

Douyin Pay will also help Douyin expand into the ecommerce scene. That’s because while users are watching short video clips of influencers promoting products on the Douyin app, they can pay using Douyin Pay instead of with competing payment services.

Helping to power the new payment service is Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology Co., which ByteDance purchased for an undisclosed amount in September of last year. Hezhong Yibao received a third-party payment license from China’s central bank in 2014.

Last fall, ByteDance achieved a valuation of $100 billion, making it the most valuable privately-held startup. In 2019, the company’s e-commerce and TikTok brands accounted for 17% of its total revenue. This figure is expected to expand this year as ByteDance taps into the potential of short-form video apps.

Another player vying for space in the Chinese payments arena is PayPal, which recently took full ownership of China-based GoPay. The move marks PayPal as the first foreign operator with 100% control of a Chinese payment platform. PayPal’s aim with the purchase is to provide a cross-border payments solution for Chinese consumers and merchants.

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Online pension provider PensionBee is making it easier for the non-traditional workforce to save for their later years. That’s because the U.K.-based company is launching a new product designed for self-employed users.

The product will enable new users to set up a new pension in minutes. The new offering also provides a flexible contributions plan so that savers can adjust their pension contribution amounts as their income fluctuates, with no minimum contribution required.

The self-employed pension product is available to sole traders and directors of companies without an existing workplace or private pension. Users have nine investment options, including the PensionBee’s Fossil Fuel Free Plan which completely excludes fossil fuel producers and persistent violators of the UN Global Compact.

One of PensionBee’s differentiating factors is its fee structure. Instead of charging users a range of fees, the company has a more simplified fee structure that charges just one annual fee. This “all-in” fee ranges from 0.50% to 0.95%, depending on the plan. And, to encourage higher balances, PensionBee offers users 50% off their fee for any portion of their savings that exceeds £100,000.

Prompting the release of the self-employed product is the increase in self-employed workers combined with a decline in consumer savings. According to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the number of self-employed workers has grown over the past two decades while the proportion saving into a private pension has fallen from 48% in 1998 to 16% in 2018. Another study from Nest found that only 24% of self-employed workers are saving into a pension.

“Without the benefits of auto-enrollment, the self-employed are at a significant disadvantage and need access to simple and flexible products urgently if they are to avoid a shortfall in later life,” said PensionBee CEO Romi Savova. “In the absence of old workplace pensions to provide a head start, we know that the thought of saving from nothing can be daunting for many self-employed consumers, which is why we’ve made it as easy as possible for them to open a pension and put money aside whenever their business allows.”

“The self-employed currently make up 20% of the PensionBee customer base, so we know their needs well and are committed to helping many more self-employed consumers plan for a happy retirement and achieve better financial outcomes.”

Savova founded PensionBee in 2014 along with his co-founder, Jonathan Lister. The company has closed three rounds of funding; the amounts of each round are undisclosed.

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