Volt teams with student marketplace

The QPay app, used by around a quarter of students across Australia (400,000), facilitates purchase of items on campus, including society event ticketing, memberships, merchandise, textbooks and retail deals.

It has a prepaid debit card, teamed with an AI system to give users insights on their purchases and saving goals. Students that use the card when spending across campuses can receive instant cashback, redeemable points or other rewards.

The collaboration with Volt will supposedly streamline QPay’s range of student services and provide integrated payment and savings capabilities.

The partnership will kick off at some point in the coming months.

Zak Bouguettaya, QPAY chief executive, commented that his company is aiming to provide a “one-stop financial hub” for students, by providing tools to make better informed decisions and a recommendation engine.

“We currently have the ears of one in four students across Australia at a point when they are open to new experiences and not necessarily rusted on to one of the big four banks just yet,” Mr Bouguettaya said.

Steve Weston, Volt Bank CEO and cofounder, added: “We are excited to be partnering with QPay to provide financial products and services to the domestic student market in the later half of the year.

“We believe QPay and Volt are culturally and strategically aligned and look forward to developing this relationship further over the coming years.”

[Related: Open banking threatens one-stop-shop finance: Athena]