Ecommpay backs ICAEW campaign for small businesses

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Ecommpay has agreed a marketing campaign with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, aimed at ICAEW communities that advise UK small businesses.

The campaign will give accountants and advisers access to guidance and insight on payments, banking and cash flow issues for smaller companies selling online.

ICAEW has more than 170,000 qualified members across 150 countries and runs both a Small and Micro Business Community and a Small Practitioners Community. Ecommpay wants to use the agreement to reach those groups directly.

The move centres on Ecommpay’s self-serve payments product for UK-registered small businesses. Built for online merchants, the service is intended to let users start taking payments quickly after onboarding.

According to Ecommpay, the product includes a hosted payment page and standard support for Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay. It also offers payment links for social commerce and bespoke business-to-business orders, alongside a basic recurring payments function.

Merchants can use direct plugins for WooCommerce, Magento 2 and Xero without developer involvement, the company said. All features operate through a single merchant account and unified dashboard, which Ecommpay said can reduce reconciliation problems linked to running several payment tools.

Adviser focus

The agreement reflects the role accountants often play in helping smaller companies choose systems for payments and cash management. For many small businesses, those advisers are the first point of contact on financial processes, as well as tax and reporting.

Rick Asiyani, Head of Commercial Partnerships, ICAEW, said the organisation’s member groups are closely involved in advising smaller firms.

“Our dedicated communities serve the accountants and advisers who guide UK small businesses on a variety of financial aspects including payments, banking and cash flow management,” said Asiyani.

“The sponsored content from Ecommpay will provide access to a wealth of payments knowledge for our members working with small businesses,” he added.

Platform detail

Ecommpay said its small business offer is designed to address limits many smaller merchants face when trying to broaden the payment methods available to customers. Lower sales volumes can make it harder for those businesses to secure the same payment set-up used by larger companies, it said.

Max Ryzhov, Chief Product Officer, Ecommpay, said the company has built a product specifically for that part of the market.

“Small businesses often face limitations in the payment options they are able to provide to their customers, as their smaller volumes mean they cannot access enterprise-quality payment infrastructure. At Ecommpay we are committed to inclusive payments for all businesses and individuals and have designed and built a dedicated small business self-serve payments platform to resolve this challenge.

“We aim to provide accountants and financial advisers working with small businesses with access to practical, easy-to-implement guidance on payments infrastructure that they can share with their clients,” said Ryzhov.

Ecommpay said the hosted payment page is brandable and has been accredited for accessibility by the Digital Accessibility Centre. The page is built in by default and can be launched from the merchant dashboard without technical support, it added.

Ecommpay, founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, operates in payments processing and acquiring. Its broader platform supports more than 100 payment methods and combines those services through a single application programming interface, according to the company.