Form3, a UK-based outfit delivering payment-as-a-service in the cloud, and Pockit, a UK fintech addressing financial inclusion through offering those looked over by traditional banks an online bank account with tools to help them manage their money, made the announcement last week. Form3 will provide Pockit and its customers with faster payments, enabling customers to move funds in just seconds.

In the UK, around eight million people have been neglected by incumbent banks, and the unbanked carry out their transactions in cash in a society that is quickly going cashless, missing out on the cost-saving benefits of using direct debit, according to the press release on the partnership.

Adam Moulson, Chief Customer Success Officer at Form3, remarked that the partnership came out of a shared mission to, “help widen financial inclusion and ensure accessibility for all,” and that Form3 is, “committed to. . . lowering barriers and opening up scheme access for all financial institutions to provide better services to their customers”.

Form3 will give Pockit use of its platform, allowing the latter to take advantage of the breadth of payment schemes, which include SEPA, SEPA Instant, SWIFT, and Faster Payments. This, according to the cloud-native payments platform, will enable Pockit’s customers to send money to any location more quickly in a manner that’s easier on their wallets.

Divya Bhatia, Technical Product Manager at Pockit, says that the collaboration with Form3 allowed Pockit to reduce transfer times from two hours to under two seconds. Pockit CEO  and co-founder Virraj Jatania remarks that Form3 has helped them to, “significantly improve the payments experience,” for their customers and that the API payments platform has been critical in helping them build “the best possible current account” for their customers.

Form3 also recently announced its plans to expand across Europe and the establishing of  an Amsterdam-based team to support this ambition. Michael Mueller, CEO of Form3, gave the following comment:

“The need for better access to scalable and efficient payments technology is a global challenge. From the outset, our mission has been to make payments faster, easier and more cost effective for the global financial community and in doing so, ensuring financial inclusion is possible for everyone. Our expansion across Europe means we can better serve our customers, many of whom are multi-national financial institutions wanting both domestic and pan-European payment services and solutions at low cost.”

Form3 numbers N26, Holvi, and LHV amongst its customers.