What is a Web Aggregator?
By definition, an online writing service can be considered a tool that provides the ability to create texts in collaboration with various sources that can be accessed online from any location. The site aggregates content from other websites, blog sites, social networks, and news organizations and integrates them in such a manner that they are easily accessible to their users. Website aggregators are meant to make the user experience much better without needing to surf through multiple sites. Plus, they differ from elementary tools such as RSS feeds and APIs to more sophisticated systems that include web scraping of content that is often updated in real-time or at periodic intervals.
There are many different types of web aggregators, nearly all of which are geared toward specific functionalities. For example, Google News is a news aggregator- a service that identifies and structures news articles from different publishers and makes them available in categories and according to the region covered. Similarly, price value comparison services like websites at PriceGrabber or Kayak are price aggregators for various commodities or services provided by online vendors. Such would also include social media aggregators, which scrape into one feed updates from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.
The web aggregators can be manual: it means that the user selects the source of his interest; or automatic, where the system uses a certain algorithm to find appropriate content. And there are many such aggregators providing the additional features of filtering and searching for the users to help them in controlling received information.
What is an Account Aggregator?
An account aggregator can be considered an IT-based device offered by various banks or financial institutions that help an individual or business gather information related to its finances from various institutions in one place. The basic intention is to make it convenient for multiple account holders to handle their holdings- that means bank accounts, insurance, investments, and pension schemes- simultaneously to aid planning.
Operational Mechanism:
This functional model links the users with sources of financial information that include banks, mutual funds, insurance agencies, applications for personal finance management, and loan-providing companies, among other similar entities, with data. The framework places an emphasis on security due to the high consent levels that must be adhered to. Users need to opt to share their financial information with certain third parties. All data transfers are encrypted and nothing is on file with the aggregators, they merely function as the switches between the two parties for on demand data transmission.
For example, if an applicant is looking at an application for a loan, the bank or the lending agency can enable the Account Aggregator to get the applicant’s documents without requiring the physical presence of that applicant. But if the applicant accepts the transfer, it is in the process of reviewing the applicant’s petition that correct information regarding the applicant may be returned, which enables the lender to make swifter decisions. This, therefore, saves the hassle of going through the lengthy process of gathering papers and subsequently quickening activities like loan approvals, credit management, assessment, and even disbursements.
What is a Payment Aggregator?
It sometimes goes by the name of a payment aggregator and more frequently, a payment service provider (PSP). This refers to an external business entity that allows a merchant or a firm to accept payments from a customer in numerous options. The service allows the merchant not to have to form a connection with every single payment network or bank. Aggregating payments functions somewhat like an intermediary between the merchant and the payment network, which- credit card companies, banks, or mobile wallets, for example. This is to say that such businesses can accept a range of payment methods without any difficulty.
Operational Mechanism:
Aggregator puts together a platform that includes different payment systems, such as credit cards, debit cards, net banking, UPI, or even digital wallets. So, when the customer places his order, the aggregator’s platform resolves each payment by including himself over the connecting lines to the payment networks. This aggregator then takes payment and transfers it to the merchant after possibly collecting a small commission at the same time.
What that means is that if a user of an e-commerce site buys something via a credit card, the payment aggregator will forward the transaction to the relevant credit card network for authorization. If the amount is approved, the funds are then collected, and the aggregator pays the merchant.
PAYMENT AGGREGATOR Vs ACCOUNT AGGREGATOR
Although payment aggregators and account aggregators are quite close to each other, their functions in finance are somewhat different. The following table below compares what the one has over the other:
1. Meaning
- Payment Aggregator – As its name mentions, a payment aggregator is sometimes termed an individual, company, or institution that serves just the purpose of integrating the management of all transactions performed by customers, credit cards, or bank account utilization. It arranges in and out as well as figures of these assuring a recipient. The primary role of any payment aggregator is to focus on how cash or any kind of input may reach an account with a bank, thus making it possible for all kinds of transactions to take place without any kind of problems.
- Account Aggregator – Account aggregators do not swim into depths of loss or profits. They are mainly concerned with gathering data about all financial accounts. These include account balance, transaction history, investment portfolio statement, insurance and pension data, and so on. The wide range of financial information that account aggregators collect can be used for a variety of purposes, such as evaluating the capacity of a borrower to borrow, determining lending risks, or as data for marketing purposes.
2. Goals and their Implementation
- Payment Aggregator – The main role of a payment aggregator is that it should make each payment service operate on the website. It makes those rotations of payments obvious in bank statements and the metal plates of the bank’s ATMs even in cases of severe banking infrastructure tightness. In such a case, the payment aggregator will be the common link that joins several banks.
- Account Aggregator – This is an account that, in addition to giving the user a chance to operate on various accounts, gives a view of information for all the accounts in just one account and avoids creating different accounts. The purpose of handing over financial data by the data subject to the processor is to facilitate the process whereby people and firms share financial information with other parties, such as creditors and financial consultants, only if they agree to do so. It does this to create what technology is subordinated to and also to relate to the overall framework of this study. It wishes to simplify the act of finding out net worth better and to do actual activities like repaying loans, budgeting, and others with the aid of digital technologies and artificial intelligence.
3. Role
- Payment Aggregator – In such a variety of payment services, the most noticeable service which can differ one from a payment aggregator is the usage of e-payment solutions. More specifically, these systems can be the intermediary force active in sending messages concerning orders of merchant payments from the clients to the processing centres and vice versa. This implies receipt payments from clients and the eventual receipts and remittances of such payments to the sellers’ banks, which will, in the end, enable the sellers to provide different means of payment to their clients without a problem.
- Account Aggregator – It is simply to obtain all the finance pieces of information with the consent of the users and then connect the source providers that are provided from all over, so the user can be able to view and monitor them all in one place from a computer screen. That is to say, it does not participate in the process of payment, but by interfacing with multiple banks, data is drawn from different parts and then presented together on a more user-friendly custom platform.
4. Security and Data Privacy
- Payment Aggregator – In most cases, a payment aggregator is a legal entity with an appropriate structure. As such, these entities have embedded protective mechanisms, such as encryption of private data, tokenization of payers, complex mechanisms preventing the acceptance of fraudulent transactions, etc. Moreover, they are following the requirements of PCI DSS that make the process of making payments safe.
- Account Aggregator – The account aggregators are designed towards a greater scale of protection of user information because the focus is at the user’s discretion pertaining to privacy. Users are strictly the guardians of their financial information and are only allowed to share the information with a limited number of individuals whom they may trust. The best part is that the aggregators don’t aggregate this data, so there is no need to worry about the safety of the data for users. These systems have been designed with all relevant data privacy issues, such as the GDPR in Europe and Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture in India.
5. Application or utilisation of the data
- Payment Aggregator – This service is designed to help sellers, e-commerce sites, and service providers collect payments more efficiently from consumers. Most of these service providers are online merchants selling products online, businesses offering services on a subscription basis, or freelancers.
- Account Aggregator – These agencies target individuals and companies, by allowing them to consolidate all financial information to one location. Banks, loaning companies, investment firms, and credit bureaus among others use account aggregators to understand the credit worthiness of the individuals or businesses for whom it is considering lending, investments, advisory services among others.
6. Revenue Model
- Payment Aggregator – In addition to that, income through payment aggregators may be obtained in the form of transaction fees, which could be a percentage of the transaction value or a fixed charge for every processed transaction on behalf of the merchant.
- Account Aggregator – Account aggregators generally make their revenues by collecting subscription or service fees from users of financial data, which are usually lenders or financial advisors to present a comprehensive picture of their finances. In most cases, there are no such fees for people who wish to have access to their own financial data.
7. Used By
- Payment Aggregator – E-commerce firms employ payment aggregators to process online transactions. Account aggregators enable the service providers, freelancers and vendors to make it easy to collect payments from their customers.
- Account Aggregator – Banks and other lending institutions take into account an individual’s whole history of his or her finances and make use of account aggregators to determine whether that person qualifies as someone who could borrow money. Such information is therefore used by finance advisory service companies to come up with insights that are more accurate about the issues in question based on the data put together.
8. Examples
- Payment Aggregators – Some of the popular ones that widely enable merchants to accept any number of payments from credit and debit cards, including digital cards, are PayPal, Stripe, Razorpay, and Square.
- Account Aggregators – Its competitor-similar products are CAMS FinServ and Navi Finserv that operate through the Account Aggregator Framework in India. Under this model, customers can share all their financial information with banks or lending institutions.
Conclusion
Majorly, the payment aggregator services tend to enable payment channels and process transactions, thus making the job of merchants easier when it comes to accepting various forms of payments. Conversely, an account aggregator is a service that combines and shares data about financial products offered by different service providers with the consent of the user so that they can be in a better position to make informed financial decisions and enhance stewardship of financial services.
In general, payment aggregators and account aggregators fall under two distinct products under the financial space. Any kind of service afforded to a business such that it can accept payments through many channels without having to connect directly to the payment networks is a payment aggregator. Their revenue model is mostly transaction-based, making them attractive to e-commerce, service-providing, and retail businesses when they want to implement payment collection.
On the other hand, Account Aggregators permit the extraction of financial data across institutions and locations so that customers can aggregate and collate their financial network and share business information with other third parties such as lenders and financial advisors. Such aggregators normally charge a subscription or service fee and have played a vital role in promoting financial inclusion and access to borrowing. Payment aggregators are essentially cutting across payment transactions, although account aggregators are much more focused on sharing information and tracking financial activities. Both these systems are highly important in order to enhance the effectiveness within the scope.
