The move follows the launch of Answer Pay’s certified repository and is a significant step in the development of the Pay.UK ecosystem.

Answer Pay is designed to support payment services providers with Request to Pay+ services through a simple integration.

In July, Mastercard successfully enrolled to the Pay.UK Framework for its Request to Pay solution in the UK. Request to Pay is part of Mastercard’s global portfolio of Bill Pay applications enabling people to view and pay their bills instantly, and with flexibility, from their bank accounts.

Peter Cornforth, commercial director at Answer Pay, said: “We are moving quickly to ensure that payment services providers and their customers can benefit from a robust Request to Pay platform. Following the launch of our certified repository in June, we are pleased to partner with Mastercard for the first live Request to Pay transactions.

“The completion of Answer Pay’s first live transactions is a significant milestone in the accessibility of new revenue streams for payment service providers supporting cash collection.”

Request to Pay is a messaging service that enables transaction settlement between businesses and individuals. It is complementary to existing payment infrastructure supporting current payment methods through improved communication.

Dick Paul, VP of real-time payment applications at Mastercard comments: “Completing the first transaction is another important landmark in the roll-out of our Request to Pay solution in the UK. Consumers and businesses are increasingly making use of faster, easier and more intuitive ways to pay and get paid. Request to Pay offers huge advantages from enhanced communication and flexibility between participants, to speed and transparency of bill payments.”

The open ecosystem, designed by Pay.UK brings together communities of billers and payers from participating payment service providers.

Repository services are the keystone of the Request to Pay ecosystem, managing the identities of participants and securely routing bill payment messages to the correct destinations. They are the interconnection between invoice management systems, typically offered by banks and FinTechs and customer bill payment applications which could be retail bank apps, digital wallets or personal finance managers.

Playing such a pivotal role in the financial ecosystem requires rigorous adherence to the standards with testing conducted by Pay.UK the retail payments authority.