How Brenger takes the risk out of paying for large-item deliveries with OPP Escrow

OPP and Brenger partnered to take the risk out of paying for a delivery before it happens: PSD2-compliant payments, with OPP Escrow holding the money until the job is done.

Buying a cabinet on a marketplace is the easy part. Getting it home is not. Brenger, a platform for the smart transportation of large items, built its business on exactly that gap, and by 2021 the payments underneath it had become the constraint. Brenger came to OPP for a PSD2-compliant way to take payment, and OPP added its Escrow solution on top, so that the money sitting in a delivery that has not happened yet is not a risk either side has to carry.

The partnership: taking the risk out of large-item deliveries

Brenger and OPP work together on the payments behind every delivery on the platform. Brenger’s users are typically people who have bought something bulky through a marketplace, a cabinet on Marktplaats or Facebook Marketplace for example, and need it delivered. Founded in 2016 and led by founder Wisse Koedam, Brenger has grown quickly and wants to take its service into Germany.

The challenge: a payment set-up that could not keep up

Since it was founded in 2016, Brenger had worked with the same Dutch payment service provider. That arrangement was chosen when the company was much smaller, and as the platform grew it began to show its limits.

The sharpest issue was regulatory. PSD2 changed what platforms handling third-party money are required to do, and Brenger needed a way to take payment that met that standard rather than working around it. Becoming a payment institution itself, and carrying the compliance weight that comes with it, was not where Brenger wanted to spend its engineering time.

Behind the compliance question sat a trust question. On Brenger, a customer pays for a delivery before it has happened. Without a neutral party holding those funds until the job is done, the financial risk of that gap sits with the platform and with its customers.

Our solution: PSD2-compliant payments and Escrow

Brenger spoke to local providers and to international ones before choosing OPP. Two things decided it.

The first was the licence. OPP holds a licence from De Nederlandsche Bank to execute PSD2 payments, so Brenger did not have to become a payment institution to stay on the right side of the regulation. That regulatory weight sits with OPP instead.

The second was Escrow. OPP had already built its own escrow solution for Marktplaats, called Gelijk Oversteken, and it is technology OPP builds and manages itself rather than buying in. On Brenger it means a customer’s payment is held securely and released once the terms of the deal have been met, so neither side is exposed while a delivery is still in progress.

“Online Payment Platform understands the world we operate in and has an impressive track record with innovative solutions that it builds and manages itself. This makes them an attractive partner for us.”

Wisse Koedam, Founder of Brenger

OPP’s presence in Germany mattered too. Brenger’s ambitions run past the Dutch border, and OPP, with an office in Berlin, can support that expansion and share what it learned entering the German market, where it has worked with eBay Kleinanzeigen.

The impact: no financial risk for Brenger or its customers

With PSD2 and Escrow in place, the financial risk comes out of the transaction, for Brenger and for the people using the platform. Brenger expects that to show up in how many marketplace buyers pick it to deliver what they have just bought.

From OPP’s side:

What this means for you: why delivery and marketplace platforms need PSD2-compliant payments

If you run a platform where customers pay for something that will be delivered or completed later, Brenger’s problem is probably one you recognise: a payment set-up chosen when the company was smaller, and a compliance bar that has risen since. Payments sit in the middle of every transaction, so the way they are handled decides how much risk each side carries.

A licensed payment partner and escrow address both at once. The regulatory weight sits with the provider instead of your product team, and funds are held until the deal is actually done.

Want to see how PSD2-compliant payments and Escrow could work for your platform? Get in touch to learn more.