Launch of 'FlexPay', a Corporate Payment Platform Collaborating with 32 Banks Nationwide

Resona Bank (President: Kazuhiro Chida), part of the Resona Group, has launched the corporate payment platform 'FlexPay' today in collaboration with 32 banks nationwide to enhance the sophistication and productivity of corporate accounting and financial operations.

*Includes banks planning to participate.

This service is a corporate payment platform designed to seamlessly integrate cloud-based accounting systems with banking payment functions, enabling users to perform everything from invoice verification to payment and post-payment reconciliation within a single accounting cloud system. Furthermore, this is Japan's first multi-bank corporate payment scheme (Patent No. 7618082) where 32 banks participate jointly. As a first step in this partnership, the service will be provided as 'FlexPay for Rakuraku Denshi Hozon' to corporate users of Rakus Inc.'s 'Rakuraku Denshi Hozon' system.

Background and Purpose

For Japanese SMEs, amidst the severe labor shortage, invoicing and post-payment reconciliation tasks remain heavily reliant on manual processes, making the efficiency of accounting and financial operations a significant challenge. Even as digital accounting progresses, payment operations remain fragmented because banking payment services are not sufficiently connected to cloud accounting systems. This service is designed as an open infrastructure accessible to various providers, including cloud accounting systems, without being dependent on a specific bank. Through diverse partnerships, it aims to create an environment where all SME customers can streamline their financial operations and take on new challenges.

Realizing an End-to-End System from Cloud Accounting to Bank Payments

Conventionally, corporate accounting staff had to use cloud accounting systems to load invoices, execute transfers via internet banking, and then match deposits/withdrawals with invoices for reconciliation and journal entries, requiring the parallel use of banking services and cloud accounting systems. 'FlexPay' directly links the cloud accounting system used for bookkeeping with banking payment functions, streamlining these fragmented tasks and significantly reducing manual and verification work for users. Moving forward, the company intends to continue partnering with various cloud system providers to support the administrative efficiency of more SME customers.

Japan's First Multi-Bank Payment Scheme with 32 Participating Banks

Payment services integrated with accounting cloud systems have predominantly been 'single-bank' types, requiring user companies to prepare bank accounts compatible with their specific accounting software. 'FlexPay' has built a 'multi-bank' payment scheme where 32 banks across Japan participate jointly, crossing institutional boundaries. This allows user companies to utilize the service with their existing bank accounts, enabling transfers using multiple bank accounts within a single cloud accounting system, thus achieving more flexible and convenient payment operations. The company aims to continue expanding the number of participating banks to make the service available to as many customers as possible.