Do wonderful things

This month, as I hear the repeated 'ping' notification of each successful charity donation processed by Wonderful Payments, it's almost impossible for me to heap enough praise on the Wonderful team. The amount they have achieved in just four weeks since we received our FCA authorisation as a Payment Institution is nothing short of miraculous.

The fact is, people can do wonderful things – but we all have to believe in them. Our name is aspirational, capturing a principle we continuously hold ourselves to as individuals and as an organisation. Wonderful started life as a free online giving platform at Wonderful.org, underpinned by our firm belief that giving platforms should be as wonderful as the charities and fundraisers who use them. Our vision was clear: we would guarantee that every penny raised reached the causes close to supporters’ hearts. No deductions. No fees. No tip jars. Simple and completely transparent.

We still won’t budge on this principle. Wonderful.org will always be free for charities. But our reach and impact were heavily constrained by the prohibitive cost of credit and debit card transactions (a cost met by our corporate sponsors). To remove this ceiling, Wonderful Payments was created with a clear objective: to develop a simple, fast, secure and much cheaper online payment processing alternative to card payments – and entirely free for charitable donations. And this vision has become a reality thanks to Open Banking.

And while we’re delighted to be harnessing the power of Open Banking to build a fully fledged payment processing service, we’re also immensely grateful to be working in an area where the future is so wonderfully unknown. As the technology’s potential crystallises, we’ll see transformation in all kinds of fields. We’re seeing shifts already. HMRC demonstrated a powerful use-case for payments, and Open Banking Expo kindly welcomed Amnesty International UK CEO, Sacha Deshmukh and me to their latest podcast to discuss how the technology could revolutionise the third sector. In Australia, we’re seeing a domino effect as innovations in Open Banking open doors for Open Finance and pave the way for Open Data.

In so many ways, we've just reached the start line. By harnessing the revolutionary potential of Open Banking, Wonderful makes online checkout simpler, safer and more affordable, bringing a new approach to a tried and tested process. Meanwhile, revenue from our commercial clients will allow us to maximise charities’ impact. It’s fintech firmly rooted in doing good.

Follow the link below to find out more about Wonderful's commercial offering and pre-register to be notified as soon as we launch.