The Bubble Bubble babysitter marketplace connects 25,000 parents with 15,000 trusted babysitters across the UK via its smartphone app. Launched in 2016, the digital marketplace set out to eliminate the pain of traditional cash payments or deferred payment via babysitting agencies.
Digital marketplaces, which make up more than half of online retail business-to-consumer spend not only invest a lot of time and money in making sure goods and services can be easily transacted on their platforms, they also want to make it as simple and seamless as possible for customers to pay for their purchases.
Bubble needed a payment provider that was flexible enough to handle varying volumes as the business scaled, while also cutting the three-day delay of its original payment system.
Now e-money processor Modulr has been adopted to fully automate the payment to the babysitter’s bank account, reducing the time it takes for money to reach their account from three days to just a matter of hours.
“Cashless payments are a massive incentive for parents and sitters. They don’t like having to deal with cash at the end of a night. This way the payment hits the sitter’s bank account directly. That gives us a commercial advantage over other solutions. For example, if sitters are getting paid through an agency, they would probably get paid weekly.”
– Adrian Murdock, co-founder of Bubble babysitter marketplace
Modulr’s API also gives Bubble real-time visibility of money coming into its account from parents that have paid, which means it can pay sitters before the money has cleared. The automation has saved Bubble from employing perhaps three to five people working in accounts and saved approximately 20p to 30p per payment.
Digital marketplaces that handle confidential client information (bank account details) also have to think about increased regulatory oversight. With the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect in May this year, Bubble wanted a payments solution that was robust and secure and ensure that the customer’s data and personal information is not accessible.
Currently, Bubble pays out more than £60,000 a month to babysitters using Modulr’s payment API and it hopes to triple volumes this year.
