Banking News

Aussie Fintech Sniip Partners AMEX

(11 January 2021 – Australia) American Express (AMEX) has partnered with Australian home grown Fintech Sniip.

In a deal the start-up expects will significant expand its customer base of 35,000 clients, the Brisbane headquartered Fintech which allows users to pay bills using any credit card regardless of issuer using BPAY and earn points through one central app. The group will now offer AMEX to its customers as a payment option at the same 1.5 percent surcharge rate as Visa and Mastercard instead of the standard 2.2 percent.

Founded in 2014, Sniip aligned with Queensland Urban Utilities and the Brisbane City Council to allow customers to pay bills using Sniip by scanning a QR code the Fintech trademarked. Sniip is seeking to sign up more merchants to its QR code technology but accepted that instead of competing with BPAY, the group would grow quicker if it enabled BPAY and focused instead on improving customer experience (CX).

In 2016 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) banned excessive credit and debit card payment surcharges. Surcharges were limited to the amount it actually costs the merchant to process the card payment. While AMEX transactions still incur a higher surcharge than Visa or Mastercard, the ACCC crackdown opened up a new line of discourse with merchants about the benefits of offering AMEX, such as its competitive promotional offers and points.

"People want choice. They don't want to be restricted in terms of the source of their funds they can use and they want to be able to switch between cards or banks without needing multiple user names or logins. We want to minimise, even more so, what a customer needs to do to pay a bill. We want to make it almost seamless” commented Sniip CEO Damien Vasta.

"The premise is to help merchants attract business from AMEX card members by offering financial or point incentives to spend. In the app it's two clicks and then the offer is saved to your card. There's no vouchers or codes and last year we saved members A$30 million, while bringing new business to our merchants as well” Mr Vasta added.

“The integration is company's next big play to increase the representation and usability of AMEX cards in Australia. For the last three years we've been signing on average 50,000 new places to our network every year in Australia. Chemist Warehouse, Ikea and Budget Direct have all come on board, while Flight Centre and TPG have reversed their differential surcharge position” stated American Express Vice President of Global Merchant Services, Robert Tedesco.

"This is where Sniip fits in as well. It enables a greater experience for our customers. Our users are savvy and they understand the benefits of the card and the value their points have. They're always looking for ways to maximise their spend to draw those benefits to themselves" Mr Tedesco added.