PayTo: Is Cash Still King?

We’ve all heard the phrase 'cash is king', and for the most part — king or queen — most people would agree. It is easily the most fundamental and universal ‘product’ in which modern society has attributed wealth and financial value to.

When cash is exchanged for goods and services—literally handed over in the exchange—'time to money' for the vendor or supplier is about as fast as it can get. With those funds literally in-hand [or in-till], they're ready to be put to work again immediately. Think, the next customer's change, or a refund, or a purchase of more goods to sell.

It's fast and powerful.

And yet, as the economy has modernised and digitised, 'time-to-money' has slowed. Even when paying for things in store with the tap of a card, so close to the till that you could literally toss cash into it, the payer's digi-dollars disappear down a system spaghetti of wires and gateways and clips, approval layers, verifications, checks and balances. There are many benefits, sure, of not having all of that cash lying around, but it has brought additional complexity, limitations and friction to the movement and settlement of those funds.

Modern money has lost significant velocity which devalues how it was meant to serve the ecosystem of value exchange, and is not very digital at all. Ironically as we push forward with digital payment solutions, the more the value of money seems to be delayed from the original sender to the intended recipient. 

Little wonder then that cash has long been considered king. But we are entering a new age of payments, where those digital entanglements are untangled, and merchant and customer bank accounts are directly connected to each other enabling the real-time flow of funds from account to account.

So, in this new paradigm of real-time flow of funds with the addition of rich data enabling account and identity verifications, and instant reconciliations, is cash really still king?

Zepto's direct connection to Australia's real-time payment rails for PayTo is your connection to a better way to pay. PayTo enables merchants to initiate pre-authorised payments directly from their customers’ bank accounts like a smart, secure and real-time direct debit. 

PayTo offers the set-and-forget benefits of direct debits and credit cards with a decreased risk of missed payments and fraud. It’s revolutionary in the way it delivers a single, flexible, secure payment solution connecting merchant and customer bank accounts without the delays and limitations of traditional payment methods. So in other words, it’s cash but even better.

Essentially, PayTo offers the best features of cash without having to actually physically go to a store, count it, and hand it over to another human being at the cash register. 

Because PayTo payments are loaded with data about the transaction and the parties engaged in it, the velocity of money and therefore real-time transfer of value from one account to another happens in mere seconds, empowering each party in the transaction to exchange on the spot, directly and seamlessly.  

Cash will never die, but PayTo will rise to provide the modern economy the very best features of cash but in a true digital and secure fashion.

The cost of not offering PayTo as a merchant is, well, costly. Contact Zepto or email us at payto@zepto.com.au to find out how to put PayTo to work for your business.