Payment infrastructure platform provider GoCardless has signed cloud-based VOIP technology provider 8X8 for recurring bills, with a goal of speeding invoice payments.
The agreement includes GoCardless providing recurring billing solutions for 8X8 in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand with additional geographies to follow in the future. Currently 8X8 provides a variety of cloud-based voice, contact center, video, mobile and unified communications services for businesses and typically operates on a SaaS subscription basis.
“By using a pull payment from a local payment method such as ACH in the U.S. and BECS in Australia we can shorten the time in which they get their B2B invoices paid by clients,” said Andrew Gilboy, general manager of North America at GoCardless.
GoCardless targets businesses that depend on recurring billing to drive their subscription revenues, servicing both B2B and B2C clients. It leverages mainstream bank payment platforms such ACH, BECS, BECS NZ (New Zealand) to help clients provide popular payment options, especially in markets that typically don’t use or accept credit cards for recurring bills.
“The U.S. is unique in that many B2C subscriptions are paid with cards," Gilboy said. "In large B2B payments, cards are too expensive to accept. Outside of the U.S., the norm is to go with direct debits. The challenge for a multinational is that they need to not only leverage the local dominant direct debit solution, but invoices need to be delivered to clients in their local currency."
GoCardless’ main operations are in the U.K. and it has expanded into France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand over the last few years. Gilboy moved to the U.S. to open an office in San Francisco in September to drive North American growth.
GoCardless has 50,000 global clients, of which 300 are based in the U.S., including
“Our bread and butter is local direct debit recurring bills and that gives clients served with a reduction in rbilling failures which is important as companies go global or realize that there is an opportunity to get paid more quickly by their clients,” said Gilboy.
GoCardless delivers its services through an API that clients can integrate into their offerings. It has integrated with popular accounting software packages such as Xero, QuickBooks and Sage as well as money transfer agent TransferWise.
According to
GoCardless has received investments from Google Ventures, Accel, Salesforce Ventures, Adam Street Partners and Balderton Capital. Google sits on GoCardless’ board of directors.
Most recently GoCardless has been piloting a machine learning tool called Success+ that lowers failure rate of recurring bills through AI automation. While the service is not live yet in the U.S., it is available to clients who are billing European customers.
