There’s moving money and then there’s money mobility. One represents the current state of how money moves in and out of accounts. The latter is the cornerstone of today’s announcement that money mobility platform Ingo Payments has acquired cloud-based banking platform Deposits Inc.
The Deposits integration into the Ingo Payments platform will create a modern, bank-grade, money movement platform that connects “money in and money out” functionality with an embedded, proprietary “money stack.” Ingo Payments now gives bank and non-bank issuers new plug-and-play capabilities to fund and monetize existing account relationships or to establish new virtual ones — by turning payments into new feature-rich accounts.
“This was literally a missing piece in our [platform] that powers the money in and money out [of an account],” Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an exclusive interview. “I’ve talked many times about how an account, a bank or a wallet is a place to store money, but in today’s world it must be easily created and funded digitally. It’s also a place to spend money from, and there’s risk associated with it. You have to be really good at risk management. With this combination, we get the part in the middle. That’s what Deposits has built: a modern money stack for ledgering and issuing accounts, now in the middle of the Ingo Payments money mobility platform.”
The “money stack” is relevant for banks as well as corporates that see an opportunity to turn a payment into an account that becomes the basis for a relationship with that customer. The Deposits software simplifies that for issuers because of its low-code or no-code platform, cloud ledgering, APIs and single sign-on systems — all of which simplify how banks and corporates track transactions in and out of those accounts.
“We can deliver all of those capabilities in a complete set of APIs and tools that make it easy to deploy new feature-rich accounts. And that’s what we mean by money stack,” Deposits CEO Joseph Akintolayo said. “We mean all the layers that you need to get to market in an efficient and meaningful way backed by our history, risk management, our know-how capabilities and our compliance. We see this as an awesome path toward the future.”
Edwards said the acquisition will amplify the capabilities Ingo Payments already provides to a diverse set of industries, including banking, FinTech, lending, hospitality, insurance, gaming and trucking.
Edwards used the example of a restaurant to describe the new Ingo Payments platform capabilities.
More than 90% of restaurants still pay out cash tips at the end of a worker’s shift. Consider a restaurant that would like to eliminate the friction associated with cash payouts and pay directly and instantly into a worker’s bank account. Edwards said that with the Deposits acquisition, Ingo Payments will expand the available options to include new instant-issue accounts for workers that open up new revenue streams and opportunities to make it more cost effective for the restaurant and the worker.
He pointed out that Ingo already powers some of the top restaurant operating systems in market today — the cloud ledgering that will now be integrated with inbound and outbound payments, as well as new accounts and complex money flows within this multilayer ecosystem, can be tracked seamlessly.
In this use case, digital tipping becomes the baseline for a new branded account that simplifies payouts for the restaurant operator, enabling a true cashless experience that is also portable as the worker changes jobs. Edwards emphasized that it also turns what was formerly cash in an envelope into a new relationship with that worker and an ecosystem among the restaurants that becomes the basis for monetizing payments in new ways.
The Ingo Payments/Deposits integration creates a proprietary and modern money stack that brings together core and non-core capabilities — such as digital experiences for embedded account creation, ledgering, funding accounts, accessing accounts, risk management and compliance — as part of a money stack that exists inside of the Ingo Payments money mobility platform.
The platform is “processor-agnostic, core-agnostic and open-banking-agnostic,” helping banks and corporates leverage the power of creating new feature-rich, account-based relationships that meet modern consumer expectations. These include receiving money from relevant form factors, including checks, and sending money to relevant destinations including P2P, Me2Me and bill payments.
Edwards and Akintolayo use the term “proprietary” to mean, “ownership,” and with that the reduction in the number of third- and fourth-party integrations and partners that banks and corporates have to manage from a risk perspective.
“You can’t outsource the core responsibilities of banking,” Edwards said. “Banks are ultimately accountable for compliance, whether they use third parties or not,” adding that the Ingo Payments platform with Deposits minimizes reliance on external partners, reducing the complexity and risks associated with compliance, and allowing banks to maintain tighter control over their operations.
Reducing the number of “layers and players,” and especially those that Edwards and Akintolayo consider core, makes the money movement and the money storage components easier for regulators, easier for banks, easier for even FinTechs to manage and to do it right, he emphasized, something that Ingo has been doing successfully for more than 20 years.
Edwards also noted the potential for Ingo to now solve a big problem for banks, which is modernizing legacy infrastructure.
“It’s our point of view that the bank is at the center of the banking side of this,” he told Webster. “One of the things that we see changing is more and more financial institutions adopting a platform like ours for their own use, for their own direct customers, not just their FinTech partnerships. Everything from account creation to managing incoming and outgoing funds can be upgraded.”
Ingo Payments’ new Deposits capabilities reduce the barriers to entry for banks and corporates handling the heavy lifting of compliance, regulatory requirements and technical aspects. The platform offers ready-to-use, customizable components that require minimal to no coding skills, tailored for financial technology applications such as receiving payments, storing money and managing disbursements.
Banks and corporates can quickly launch financial services that are specific to their needs without forcing a one-size-fits-all solution. It focuses on compliance and customization, Akintolayo said, allowing businesses to translate their brand and values into the digital financial world.
“This changes everything for the ‘legacy’ economy,” Akintolayo explained. “And it will give them the ability to catch up to the modern financial experience revolution. It’s what consumers expect today, and it’s what small businesses expect today in a digital, embedded world.”
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