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Supporting estate agents with open banking
Glyn Trott, Calmony MD, explains that Calmony was designed as a digitally focused business with open banking connections and API capabilities from its inception. Modulr was the perfect fit as a payments partner, able to offer a range of capabilities, from account creation to monitoring transactions to enabling payments.
Calmony operates EMI accounts as a compelling product for sectors that don’t come under the regulation, such as block management companies.
“We've got a client who manages about 50 different sites and their challenge is that with each site they need 2 accounts – one to collect ground rents and fees and another to hold maintenance reserves,” says Glyn.
“When they go to a classic high street bank those requests can take two-to-three months, and they might still get refused. Across their portfolio of sites they need 100-plus accounts, so it is a huge waste of resources when they say no.
“This client came to us and it was so straightforward – once they've gone through our approval application process and Modulr’s we almost instantly opened them up 120 accounts, so they had 20 in reserve and whenever they won new business, they knew they had the account ready for that new customer.”
From account creation to faster payments
Today, Calmony’s work with Modulr concentrates on facilitating open banking payments and direct debits around rental collections. “Some of the unique solutions that we can deliver involve bulk payments, where Modulr gives us that ability to create and send a Faster Payment at large scale,” says Glyn.
It is here where Calmony’s digital skills have allowed it to shine.
“We took that capability and engineered it into our own version of bulk Bacs-like payments. We offer our own CRM, but our agency customers can get a BACS file from their own system, upload it to ours and we can even convert it into 20 or 30 individual Faster Payments that they can simply authorise.
“As most of our customers cannot even access a Bacs facility because of their limited available accounts, they're forced to manually put payments into online banking, so that bulk payment feature represents a huge, huge saving for them.”
“As most of our customers cannot access a Bacs facility because of their limited available accounts, they're forced to manually put payments into online banking, so that bulk payment feature represents a huge, huge saving for them.”
Automated pull payments
Direct debits is the next area where Modulr and Calmony hope to make an impact for its customers.
“Obviously, the big challenge in the rental industry is collecting rents,” says Glyn.
“You're heavily reliant on a tenant to set up a correct standing order and the only alternative is payment providers that can be very expensive in charging both fixed fees and a percentage of the rent, which has a really negative impact on the agent’s bottom line.”
Calmony doesn’t apply this percentage fee onto its prices. “Because Modulr gives us a fixed transactional cost with a direct debit, we are able to pass those benefits onto our customers,” says Glyn. “So if you're collecting an average rent of £1,000, it's the same price as if you're collecting a really high-end £5,000 rent in central London.”
Thanks to Modulr, Calmony is able to automate collection attempts, creating a ‘soft’ rent chase that dramatically reduces the risk of an incorrect standing order delaying a payment or causing it to fail.
“The other upside is that we're able to tell when a tenant cancels their direct debit – which is powerful information for our customers,” adds Glyn: “it’s an early warning that the tenants could be going into arrears and that’s a nice unique selling point to landlords.”
Opening customers’ eyes to the possibilities
For Calmony, while customers tend to sign up to receive access to one payment or open banking capability, they often don’t know or consider the additional benefits that can receive – something the business is keen to resolve.
“They don't realise the benefits,” says Glyn. “Most start-ups, when they come along, it's just an account, but they very quickly realise that all these other features are critical to any business in the sector to facilitate collections of rents and payments to landlords.
“When they open an account with us, they've instantly got access to the open banking payments and the standing orders. We also provide card payment facilities, which we facilitate through Modulr.
“As they grow, they then realise, well, I actually need a payment platform to collect, I need the open banking payment app to set up a standing order, I'm actually spending a long time doing individual payments, I need a bulk payment feature, and so on. They realise they have a really good USP to offer to their landlords, and that’s the appeal.”
If you would like to explore how Modulr could support your organisation in accelerating, processing or automating payments, contact a member of the team.
If you would like to learn more about working with Calmony, please visit calmony.co
“Because Modulr gives us a fixed transactional cost with a direct debit, we are able to pass those benefits onto our customers.”
