As we’ve often talked about on this blog, there are many digital payment options available to businesses, schools, clubs and NFPs in New Zealand.
Here at POLi, we’re one of them, and today we’d like to talk about how POLi works, what it does, and how secure it is. Of course, we appreciate our bias on the subject and understand if you need to compare us to other payment providers before making a decision – in fact, we encourage it!
However, this article should give you a basic idea of what POLi can do for you compared to other options available to Kiwis.
What is POLi?
POLi is a direct online payments tool available to businesses here in New Zealand. In fact, you may have already seen us in use by brands like Air New Zealand, PB Tech, MightyApe and Waka Kotahi (NZTA).
In short, POLi would allow a customer to pay your organisation directly from their regular online banking account. It requires no manual inputting of bank details at their end, and can be done almost instantly. They do not need a credit or debit card, there’s no financial loan or interest of any kind. It’s simply an instant, direct payment made from their online bank account to yours, facilitated by us.
POLi payments can be made instantly straight from your website, shopping cart, or even electronic invoices.
How do you use POLi?
POLi for merchants and other organisations
POLi can be integrated into your existing shopping cart, merged with other software that you use (such as accounting software or another tech solution), or hosted on your website via an embedded Pay Now form. What that means is whether you have a preferred e-commerce shopping cart or not, you can still use POLi.
Setting up POLi on your website
Set up is fairly simple, although as with anything to do with payments there are a few verification steps you’d need to go through. That said, we’re talking about a timeline of hours and days – not weeks or months.
When you provide bank and basic business details to us, we can verify you as per NZ’s laws … and that’s it. Now you’re ready to integrate POLi into your website. We’ve made this as easy as possible by pre-integrating with a wide variety of software partners – learn more about those here.
If you don’t use any of those platforms, our customer support team can walk you through adding POLi Pay Now buttons to your website, or help you create a Pay Now with POLi form that can be embedded quickly onto any page.
Do I need a merchant account from my bank?
No, it isn’t required. Although if you already have one, we can work with that.
POLi for your customers
Customers will find your POLi Pay Now buttons as a part of your existing shopping cart, as standalone buttons next to your products (if not using a shopping cart), or even in social media, texts, emails, electronic invoices – wherever you need to reach your audience.
Once they press the button, they’ll be taken to the secure POLi portal where they can log into their regular online banking account. POLi automatically fills in all the reference information, so there’s no chance of human error. When they’re finished, the payment processes instantly from bank to bank.
- Note: At no point does the money come through POLi. We don’t collect or store any data – see our section on security below.
Which banks work with POLi?
- ANZ
- ASB
- BNZ
- The Cooperative Bank
- TSB
- Westpac
- Kiwibank
POLi also works in Australia, and with a variety of Australian banks. Learn more here.
Is POLi secure?
We know security is important to you, which is why we’ve built POLi to be as secure as possible.
Like we mentioned earlier, we don’t collect or store any of your data – we don’t even cache it. What we are is a ‘proxy’ service. Basically, we’re a window to your customers’ regular bank accounts, which they can access from your website via our servers. That means we can secure and confirm every transaction, to allow an instantaneous payment.
To ensure we are provably secure, we’re also ISO certified.
Learn more:
What are POLi’s fees?
POLi is a low-fee payment option compared to most other payment providers here in New Zealand. We charge no setup fees, no hidden charges, and we cap our transaction fees so that they don’t escalate out of control each month.
Because of this low transaction cap, you can actually save as much as 90% with POLi compared to a credit card and payment gateway. You can find how we arrived at that figure at the link below.
If you’re a not-for-profit, these charges are even lower.
- Learn more: Our pricing
POLi versus other payment options
We wholeheartedly believe POLi is a great service, but despite that we’re still sitting here recommending that you consider us as well as other payment options.
The reality is, most Kiwis these days want choice. While POLi works for a great many people because of its simplicity, Kiwis love paying by the method that they’re used to – for some that will be their credit/debit card, others it will be POLi, it could be crypto, a mobile wallet on their phone, or a Buy Now/Pay Later service
If you can’t afford to host a lot of payment options, POLi is a great low-cost, simple way to get into online payments. But, if you can, we recommend hosting a few options, to give people that choice they crave.
Read more about payment options: