Papaya, Applied Innovation Team Up for Faster Bill Pay

Bill payment platform Papaya has launched a partnership with Applied Innovation, a software company that makes solutions for the accounts receivable management (ARM) industry.

As Papaya said in a news release Wednesday (May 4), the collaboration lets Applied Innovation integrate Papaya’s “bill understanding technology” into their business customers’ payments portals. This will let consumers make payments in seconds by scanning bills with their cellphones.

Speaking with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster earlier this year, Papaya CEO Patrick Kann demonstrated Papaya’s IP by ripping a paper bill into pieces and mixing up the pieces.

Learn more: Paying Any Paper Bill Now As Easy As Taking a Picture of It

The app was still able to accurately scan the bill. Its predictive technology loads the logo “if we have it in our database,” Kann said, “and if we don’t have the [correct] logo, it brings something that is similar. If it’s to a dentist, we bring a dental logo.”

Kann said Papaya’s app uses two key pieces of IP to carry out its job. One uses imaging technology to capture the bill and pull data from it — “no matter what, even bills that we have never seen before.”

The second component of Papaya’s proprietary IP is the payments piece. The app doesn’t charge consumers for its services, but instead generates revenue by taking a small cut of the card-processing fee for each transaction.

See also: Papaya Raises $50M to Improve Bill Payment

“We developed a number of direct, indirect and automation technologies so that any bill, no matter what, is paid,” Kann told Webster.

Harry Strausser, president of Applied Innovation, said in the release that the partnership offers a “tremendous” opportunity to streamline accounts receivable management.

“The ARM industry has been historically slow to innovate, but we strongly believe alternative payment methods like Papaya are the next step for improving the experience of our business customers, as well as everyday consumers,” he said.

The partnership comes on the heels of a Series B funding round by Papaya in December of last year that raised $50 million.