Verse: Solving the in-App Instant Payments Challenge

Verse: Solving the in-App Instant Payments Challenge

by April 28, 2021

Verse, a mobile P2P payments provider, wanted to seize an opportunity to move quickly on the P2P payments scene to allow its users to instantly send money to any eurozone country – without the need for Verse to rely on an intermediary to execute payments.

In close partnership with Metasite bespoke financial software engineers, the fintech smoothly launched Eurozone-wide instant mobile app payments in active use by over half a million customers. Metasite SEPA Payments Plug-In Application enabled Verse to confidently go live with the full range of cross-border payments, driving a significant increase in payment transactions.

“We’re very happy to have chosen Metasite as our technology partner for launching a new service vital for our business – SEPA instant payments that enabled instant transfers to all banks in Spain and the Eurozone without the need for an intermediary”,

shares Jaume Miró, Verse COO.

The company is now part of the Cash App organisation, a mobile payment service developed by a US-based fintech Square with over 36 million monthly active customers.

The solution: Metasite SEPA payments plug-in application

Verse chose to integrate its core banking system with the Central Bank of Lithuania CENTROlink payment system because that enables Verse to incorporate SEPA instant payments and credit transfers into the Verse app experience.

Yet integrating SEPA payments into the Verse core banking infrastructure posed some challenges – from ensuring a smooth roll-out through to meeting technical and compliance requirements. Verse needed a partner that could deliver a steady, re-assuring route to achieve its objectives. At the same time, Verse wanted to retain maximum decision-making power and flexibility to meet demanding user expectations.

In Metasite, Verse found a technology partner with a unique mix of a tailored approach as well as expertise and speed. Metasite also has an established yet highly customisable middleware solution that provided a stepping stone: Metasite SEPA Payments Plug-in Application.

The application is a customisable middleware hosted on Verse infrastructure, which cuts out the need for payments intermediaries. The plugin is designed for quick deployment with the goal to help fintech companies such as Verse to quickly access real-time payments.

The result: confidently rolling out instant payments across Europe

To implement SEPA capabilities, Metasite helped Verse with the integration of SEPA credit transfers and instant payments schemes. From a technical perspective, the integration of each scheme requires going through the following key steps – setup and integration with a client’s internal systems, integration with a hardware security module (HSM) for the signing process, and passing the required tests.

Verse instant go-live was aided by the fact that Metasite is an established integrator with knowledge of the Central Bank of Lithuania processes, including existing experience in helping clients pass CENTROlink acceptance testing.

Mantas Kentra, Metasite Senior Solution Architect

Mantas Kentra

“Financial institutions must provide a test log of completed transactions scenarios that demonstrate the ability of the institution’s integration to handle different transactions competently. The current testing regime requires proof of successful execution for dozens of test cases. We assisted Verse in demonstrating that their SEPA integration functions according to regulatory requirements and that the payment processing is ready to go live.

In general, SEPA payments integration for Verse worked really smoothly, which in large part was the result of the client’s hands-on approach,”

shares Mantas Kentra, Metasite Senior Solution Architect.

 

About Metasite

Metasite engineers build and integrate complex financial platforms and applications for financial industry clients in the UK, Switzerland and across EU. They develop solutions for Bank Vontobel, Man Group, Verse (Cash App / Square), ERGO (Munich RE), Solum Financial, Bond Radar, Equiniti and Swedbank, among others.

Metasite build enterprise-grade digital solutions and financial platforms: online platforms and interfaces, SEPA payments apps, billing and payment systems, portfolio management systems, ESPP solutions, derivatives portfolio valuation and risk modelling platforms, business process automation solutions, middleware and integration modules, market simulation platforms, mobile and desktop web portals and complex data visualisation solutions, to name just a few examples.

Their engineering and design teams breathe Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, React, Angular, TomCat, WildFly, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Hadoop, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Kafka, Cassandra, Impala, Spark, Tableau, Talend and are biased towards open source tech and agile development.

Metasite is Lloyd’s-insured and ISO9001 and ISO27001-certified.