Volt, the global real-time payments platform, today announces its expansion into Australia following a period of sustained growth for the UK-headquartered fintech company. Following Volt’s $60m funding round earlier this year, this development marks the latest step in its ambitious growth plans to meet market demand for real-time payments across the globe.

Having already established itself across the UK and Europe, and expanding its global footprint by entering the South American market via Brazil in 2021, with a network of more than 5,000 banks, Australia represents a significant milestone for Volt and the account-to-account (A2A) payments industry. Volt’s gateway will be integrated with PayTo, an Australian digital payment platform that enables consumers to authorise and control payments directly from their bank account.

While the adoption of real-time payments in Australia is still relatively new, with debit and credit cards dominating the payment landscape, there is appetite for new and innovative payment methods. A recent report from Cognizant found that Australia is the second leading market in the adoption of new payments technology, following China with Juniper Research reporting predicting the value of open banking payments will reach $330bn globally by 2027.

The first merchant in Australia to integrate Volt’s technology is Megatix, one of the country’s fastest growing ticketing platforms. The self-service ticketing platform is well established in the market and partners with some of Australia’s most high profile events and venues by providing technology that enables safe and secure purchase of tickets to its customers.

Thanks to Volt’s real-time payment capabilities, Megatix customers in Australia now have the ability to select ‘Instant Bank Transfer’ as a payment option at checkout. Not only does this help vendors to bypass costly credit card fees, but it also offers customers a more secure, fast and seamless payment option. Additionally, with real-time payments Megatix, and its vendors, receive payments much quicker – thus improving cash flow and business efficiency.

Reflecting on the news, Tom Greenwood, Founder and CEO of Volt, said: “I am incredibly excited to finally introduce our technology to the Australian market and begin our journey into the APAC region. Our goal at Volt is to revolutionise the payments sector and create a solution that significantly benefits not only merchants who use our technology but their customers as well. Australia is fast becoming a key market for many global businesses and similarly to Brazil when we launched there, our introduction into this fast-growing market will be transformative to the payments space.”

Roshan Odhavji, CEO of Megatix, added: “Our goal is to be at the forefront when it comes to creating an innovative ticketing platform and we have found the perfect payment technology partner in Volt to do just that. With Volt’s industry leading real-time payment capabilities, we’re now able to offer our customers a slick checkout experience, and be the first in the market to do so. Thanks to open banking and Volt’s technology, we’re able to improve the payments process immeasurably for our customers, such as eliminating costly chargebacks associated with payments which have been a historic pain point for our vendors.”

Volt will also be establishing a physical presence in Australia, looking to make a number of significant hires to manage and grow the Australian market, in the very near future.