Beam, the payments service provider for merchants, is partnering with Open Banking firm Nuapay to process payments for its clients on WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress, bringing online and omnichannel retailers the benefits of faster, more secure and cost-efficient payments.

After a pilot, the Beam service is available now to almost 100,000 websites using WooCommerce to sell goods and services in the UK.

The news comes just a month after the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) published research showing that 50 per cent of the UK’s small business community are using the services offered by Open Banking providers.

Online and omnichannel merchants using WooCommerce to accept payments can register with Beam and will also be issued with a business payment account with Nuapay.

Through this account, Beam can enable merchant access to instant payments, instant refunds, recurring payments and instalment plans.

As there is no payment card involved, merchants are not subject to ever-rising card scheme fees.

No consumer card details being exposed also means that all transactions are fully Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)-compliant. This benefits retailers and consumers by reducing the risk of fraud.

To pay, consumers do not require a Beam account, as the transaction is completed as a direct account-to-account transfer. They simply select the Beam button on the checkout page and are redirected to their banking app to authorise the payment.

Merchants using the Beam service will also be able to collect instant payments at physical point-of-sale points through a QR code on the Beam app, or remotely via Beam’s Pay By Link solution.

Nick Raper, head of UK at Nuapay, said: “E-commerce has grown at an exponential rate in the last year, and, as more consumers move online due to ongoing lockdowns, this trend shows no sign of slowing down.

He added: “As such, we need to do all we can to empower small businesses to serve their customers with the best possible experience.”

Martin Burt, founder at Beam, adds: “Our aim is for the Beam payment solution to become as familiar on checkout pages as Stripe or PayPal, and we are going to continue to innovate to bring UK businesses the leading payment acceptance solutions on the market.”

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