Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Monday announced it has acquired a 20% stake in Brisbane-based fintech Paypa Plane.

The bank said as part of its investment, the pair will enter into a partnership to create a "superior payments experience" for Australian businesses and help them transition to PayTo, a New Payments Platform-based product to allow businesses to make real-time direct debit payments to customers.

"Our partnership will accelerate CBA's delivery of PayTo for our business customers and over time, open up other new capabilities to revolutionise the payments experience for businesses and consumers," CBA business banking group executive Mike Vacy-Lyle said.

Vacy-Lyle continued, saying that by creating a digital link between a business and payer using Paypa Plane's platform, businesses will be able to benefit from cost savings and cash-flow assurances, while consumers will have greater transparency.

"We want to help our business customers offer quality payment experiences that delight their customers, maximise their ability to get paid, and spend less time on administration and collections -leaving more time to focus on growing their businesses," he said.

"Our partnership with Paypa Plane will help us to innovate faster and better respond to our customers' needs."

Read also: What is Australia's New Payments Platform?

Also on Monday, ANZ provided a market update, in which it detailed it has made "solid progress" in Australia to improve systems and processes for simple home loans with application times now in line with other major lenders.

The bank also reported it expected run-the-bank costs to be broadly flat in the first half with investment spend higher as it continues to invest in the business, particularly within Australia retail and commercial and ANZx, an internal division that was established by the company to focus on long-term tech investments. It added it was also expensing investment at a rate of 89% during the quarter ending 31 December, higher than the 79% rate recording during FY21.

Elsewhere, Digital Wallet, which is part of the Eftpos group, has launched a new customisable debit rewards feature for its digital wallet and payments app Beem It.

The new feature, known as Beem Rewards, has been designed to allow small businesses to create customisable rewards and offers, so customers can earn cashback on their spending. The feature also has a "map view" so customers can discover which small businesses are making offers. The new feature is due for release in 1Q22. 

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