How Pay.com.au is Rethinking Business Payments and Rewards

In this episode of The Bottom Line, Sevan Tuna speaks with Ed Alder, Group CEO and co-founder of pay.com.au, about the thinking, decisions and execution behind one of Australia’s fastest-growing payment platforms.

Launched in 2019, pay.com.au allows businesses to use a credit card to pay expenses that would ordinarily require a bank transfer, including payments to suppliers that do not accept cards. Businesses can streamline their payments, manage cash flow and earn rewards through the company’s own rewards currency.

What began as an idea on a whiteboard now serves more than 30,000 customers each quarter and processes approximately $3.2 to $3.3 billion in quarterly transactions.

The conversation explores how Ed’s experience across accounting, banking, mergers and acquisitions, and digital businesses helped shape pay.com.au, why the founders created their own rewards program, how staff ownership has influenced the company’s culture, and why its move into the United States is being approached with patience and discipline.

Building the Experience to Lead pay.com.au

Ed’s professional career began with a business degree at RMIT University, where he initially majored in marketing.

After returning to the United Kingdom, he joined Ernst & Young in a business development role supporting its turnaround team. A partner encouraged him to study chartered accountancy, setting him on a path that would later include corporate restructuring, banking, mergers and acquisitions, and business leadership.

Ed subsequently worked in ANZ’s turnaround division during the Global Financial Crisis, assisting businesses experiencing financial pressure and excessive debt. He later moved into mid-market advisory, working on business sales and capital raisings.

Each role gave him a different view of how companies operate: how money moves, how businesses access funding, how transactions are structured and how financial decisions affect future growth.

His first opportunity to lead a company came through Point Hacks, Australia’s frequent flyer and rewards platform. Together with Damien Waller, David McCall and Richard Burke, Ed acquired the business after working with the group at iSelect.

That combination of financial experience and familiarity with the rewards industry eventually led the team to identify a much larger opportunity.

Recognising a Gap in Business Payments

The idea for pay.com.au emerged from a common frustration experienced by Australian businesses.

Business owners often wanted to use credit cards for larger operating expenses, both to manage their working capital and collect reward points. However, many suppliers only accepted bank transfers or did not accept certain card types.

This meant businesses were missing the benefits attached to substantial expenses simply because of how a supplier preferred to be paid.

pay.com.au was created to sit between the business and the recipient. The customer can fund the transaction using an eligible card or another available payment method, while the supplier receives the money through their usual bank account.

For the business, it creates greater flexibility over how and when payments are made. It also brings transactions into one platform, reducing the need to manage expenses across multiple cards and disconnected payment processes.

The opportunity was not developed overnight. Ed explains that the founding team spent considerable time testing the model, examining the economics and ensuring the platform could handle significant growth before taking it to market.

That preparation proved important. Rather than chasing an immediate spike in activity, the team concentrated on establishing a commercial model that could expand steadily.

Creating an Independent Rewards Currency

An important turning point came when the founders considered what would happen if changes to interchange fees affected the availability of traditional credit card rewards.

Instead of relying entirely on card providers, pay.com.au developed its own currency, PayRewards.

Customers can earn PayRewards through eligible transactions and transfer them to a choice of airline and hotel loyalty programs. The network now includes more than 14 airline partners, alongside hotel groups such as Marriott, Accor and IHG.

Establishing those relationships required direct agreements with each provider. Unexpectedly, the disruption caused by the pandemic helped open conversations that may otherwise have taken much longer.

With international travel severely restricted, airlines and hotel businesses were looking for new revenue sources. This allowed pay.com.au to speak with senior representatives and demonstrate how the platform could introduce their loyalty programs to Australia’s small and medium-sized business community.

The arrangement offers value across the network. Loyalty partners receive additional revenue and access to business customers, while pay.com.au users can turn ordinary company expenditure into rewards that may be used for flights, accommodation and selected experiences.

Making the Platform Practical for Finance Teams

Rewards may encourage business owners to explore the service, but the platform also has to be genuinely useful for the people processing transactions.

Accountants and bookkeepers were therefore involved throughout its development.

This was especially important because adopting a new payment system requires a change in established behaviour. If the platform added extra administration or made reconciliation more difficult, finance teams would have little reason to support it.

By incorporating feedback from bookkeepers, pay.com.au sought to create a central location that simplified payment processing and made transactions easier to track.

The company is continuing to broaden the platform beyond payments and rewards. Its longer-term vision includes foreign exchange, receivables, travel and solutions that could help businesses encourage earlier payment from their customers.

The goal is to give a business owner or CFO a clearer picture of several financial functions from one place, rather than requiring them to move between separate systems.

Choosing a Name That Builds Confidence

Asking a business to transfer money through an unfamiliar platform requires trust.

For that reason, the founding team placed considerable importance on securing a name that was direct, memorable and clearly connected to the service it provided.

The pay.com.au domain was purchased through a broker so negotiations could occur confidentially. The name helped the company communicate its purpose quickly while providing the credibility needed in an industry where customers are understandably cautious.

In an unusual outcome, the former owners of the domain later learned about the business, became interested in its potential and invested an amount broadly equivalent to what they had received from the sale.

The company now operates in the United States under the PayRewards brand, retaining the connection between business transactions and the benefits customers can earn.

Giving Employees a Personal Stake

Ed identifies pay.com.au’s employees and internal culture as significant contributors to its progress.

Team members are given opportunities to own shares, participate in capital raisings and understand the company’s financial performance. Quarterly shareholder briefings provide visibility over its results and direction.

The intention is to encourage people to think beyond their individual position and consider the overall health of the company.

Ed believes equity changes how employees approach their work. When people have a genuine stake in the outcome, they are more likely to take responsibility, solve problems and protect the quality of what the business is creating.

The company also aims to keep its hierarchy relatively flat. Teams are trusted to make decisions, unnecessary meetings are discouraged and employees are invited to leave discussions when their time would be better spent elsewhere.

Rather than overwhelming staff with extensive measures, pay.com.au generally limits each person to three key performance indicators. At an organisational level, Ed monitors transaction value, new registrations and reward redemptions.

Weekly written updates from department leaders allow him to remain informed without requiring every issue to be discussed in another meeting.

Investing in Connection and Collaboration

pay.com.au’s approach to workplace culture includes practical initiatives designed to bring people together.

Shared lunches give colleagues from different teams an opportunity to speak informally, exchange ideas and develop stronger working relationships. The company’s new office also includes communal areas, recreational facilities and an on-site coffee service.

These may appear to be small benefits, but Ed views them as purposeful investments. They help employees save money, create natural opportunities for conversation and make the workplace somewhere people want to spend time.

The company also celebrates important milestones and encourages teams to acknowledge strong performance.

For Ed, an effective culture does not require everyone to be close friends. It requires people to respect one another, understand the common objective and work well together when it counts.

Preparing for the Next Stage of Growth

pay.com.au considered an initial public offering and completed much of the preparation required to pursue a listing.

However, changing market conditions made the timing less attractive. Rather than proceed into an uncertain environment, the company changed course and completed an oversubscribed private capital raise of more than $30 million.

This allowed pay.com.au to retain many of the governance practices developed during the proposed listing process. It now operates with an independent chair, an experienced board and regular financial reporting, giving the company much of the discipline associated with a listed organisation while remaining privately held.

Ed says the business has more than $50 million in net cash and continues to manage investor funds conservatively.

The emphasis is not on spending simply because funding is available. Capital is directed towards initiatives that can demonstrate a credible pathway to continued expansion.

Entering the United States Carefully

The United States represents a significant opportunity, with approximately 33 million small and medium-sized businesses.

However, Ed is conscious that many Australian companies have struggled when entering overseas markets. A product that succeeds locally cannot simply be transferred into another country without accounting for different customer behaviour, payment methods, technology and commercial relationships.

pay.com.au is therefore treating its American operation as a new venture under the PayRewards brand.

The company has appointed Blake Hutchinson as its US CEO and is building a small local team. Rather than immediately committing heavily to advertising, it is testing customer demand, studying transaction patterns and developing partnerships within selected industries.

The business has already attracted more than 3,500 companies through its American acquisition funnel. Before committing substantially more funding, the team wants clearer evidence about customer transaction volumes, preferred payment methods, reward transfers and the sectors showing the strongest demand.

The approach is deliberately measured: establish what works, understand the local market and then invest more aggressively when the results justify it.

Turning an Idea into a Scalable Business

The growth of pay.com.au shows what can happen when a clear market need is combined with relevant experience and careful implementation.

The founders understood the frustrations faced by smaller businesses, but they did more than introduce another way to collect points. They built a payment system that finance teams could use, created an independent rewards network, secured recognised loyalty partners and developed a model in which customers, commercial partners and the platform could all benefit.

The company’s next chapter will test whether that model can succeed beyond Australia.

Its progress so far offers valuable insights for any business owner considering how to launch a new service, manage rapid expansion, attract strong employees and approach an international market without losing financial discipline.

Listen to the full episode of The Bottom Line with Ed Alder to learn more about the creation of pay.com.au, the commercial thinking behind its rewards network, the culture supporting its expansion and the strategy guiding its move into the United States.