Change Financial completes payments and card issuing platform

Change Financial (ASX: CCA) has achieved a key milestone after announcing it has completed its namesake payments and card issuing platform, which allows banks and businesses to launch payment solutions under their own brands.

The news sent Change’s share price sky-rocketing 188% to reach a high of $0.36 by early afternoon trade.

Change has also obtained payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) certification and its US banking partner Central Bank of Kansas City has now formally registered Change as a Mastercard payments processor.

According to Change, its platform is the first payment and card issuing system to be completed in the last five years and only the second in the last 20 years.

The company developed its platform from “the ground up” and aims to address today’s payment needs without the complexity and legacy of traditional issuer processors.

Payments and card issuing platform

Change’s platform includes numerous features such as a program dashboard to manage payment programs in real-time. It also allows users to configure individual account settings such as transaction limits and fees.

A data insights feature enables customers to access “data rich” information to understand how their programs are performing.

API connectivity allows rapid delivery of customers’ projects while also building infrastructure to increase productivity.

Refine payments and authorisation controls are underpinned by a variety of business rules to reduce fraud including the ability to control excess spending and other unwanted behaviour.

Change’s banking as a service feature enables banks, credit unions and other providers without a mobile strategy to offer mobile banking applications under their own brand.

Meanwhile, payment processing capability is built on Mastercard’s new network gateway.

Commercialising Change Platform

With its platform now complete, Change will begin commercialisation activities, with the first stage of the process to involve onboarding its first customer.

The company’s board plans to formulate a broader market strategy to capitalise on opportunities in the US.

As part of this strategy, Change will target more than 7,000 federal deposits insurance corporation banks, 6,000 credit unions and numerous other players in US’ financial services sector.

Change anticipates its addressable market is worth about US$50 billion in 2019 and this is predicted to grow 20% per annum through to 2025.