Exploring Real-Time Payments in the Mid-Market: Insights from Lorna Harley, Head of Mid-Market Sales & Partnerships at Azupay

As real-time payments gain traction in Australia, mid-market businesses are increasingly curious about the opportunities they present. Lorna Harley, Head of Mid-Market Sales & Partnerships at Azupay, shares her expert insights into the challenges, misconceptions, and evolving trends shaping the mid-market payments landscape. In this Q&A, Lorna discusses the impact of PayTo, the importance of innovation in partnerships, and offers practical advice for businesses looking to optimise their payment processes in an ever-evolving industry.?

1. What are the most common misconceptions mid-market businesses have about real-time payments, and how do you address them??

It is not uncommon for mid-market businesses to assign responsibility for payments to a range of other roles – from financial controllers, operations teams, product teams or customer engagement teams. This typically means that the person you are dealing with is not always a payment specialist and has other responsibilities.? I like to take the time to understand the business – their payment flows and potential pain points. This approach lets me offer tailored guidance on how our solutions can seamlessly integrate, showing the clear benefits right from the start. ?

2. How has the introduction of PayTo impacted the mid-market segment, and what adoption trends are you seeing??

Right now, there’s growing interest in two key areas: a direct debit replacement, and a streamlined bank-to-bank payment method with fewer steps than a PayID transaction —even one as seamless as our widely adopted Azupay solution. Like most legacy systems, direct debit comes with limitations that PayTo can effectively solve. Bringing more merchants on board and building out case studies will be essential in driving adoption forward.?

3. What role does innovation play in your approach to partnerships, and how does Azupay stay ahead of the competition in the mid-market space??

Having been with Azupay for over 4 years now, I’ve always believed that having effective partnerships is a foundation for the overall success of our business.?As a dedicated NPP provider, we place great value on working with partners who can help our merchants go live faster and access a wider range of payment options. Continuous improvement is part of Azupay’s DNA, and we’re always refining our solutions. Our partners consistently tell us that our tech stack is user-friendly, and our frequent enhancements give them new ways to engage with both existing and prospective clients.?

4. How do you foresee the payment landscape evolving for mid-market companies over the next 5 years, particularly in light of emerging trends like NPP and open banking??

I’ve seen enormous changes in the 4 years of PayID adoption and growth – when I started with Azupay we had zero transactions – now we process over 2 million transactions a month. That’s extraordinary growth and gives me confidence that we will see a similar rate of adoption for our PayTo solutions. The fact that we uniquely provide the merchant with an out of the box UX, shortcutting their design and development times makes us an attractive proposition. With ongoing refinements and an expanding product suite, we’re well-equipped to deliver real value to our mid-market customers.?

5. xWhat advice would you give to mid-market companies looking to optimise their payment processes but unsure where to start??

Read all the white papers and case studies you can. A great place to start is to identify pain points in your current payment processes – whether that be receiving money or disbursing funds. Talk to a specialist about how real-time payment and account-to-account options could help solve those specific issues and you’ll start to understand the potential.?It’s quite common for us to take a gradual approach in rolling out solutions for a merchant — you don’t have to use everything we offer right from the start. Come along to one of our networking events, connect to our team on LinkedIn, attend industry events and join the wonderful world of payment nerds!?

Azupay is a leading Australian Fintech provider of real time, account to account payments for Government, Banks, Billers and Enterprise customers, delivering unique product payments features on Australia's New Payments Platform with PayID & PayTo. While primarily providing solutions to businesses, Azupay also places significant focus on end payer experience, migration and adoption by now delivering out of the box RTP/NPP payments applications that can be quickly integrated by businesses into mobile, online and instore checkout and payment options.

https://www.azupay.com.au/contact-us/