Transact Bank, formerly Colorado National Bank (CNB), has partnered with Hopdoc, a Nashville-based telemedicine platform. The partnership will enable Hopdoc to offer UK-based medical doctors a telehealth platform which allows them to keep meeting with patients amid the lockdown.
Although the UK government has taken what it considers to be “modest” steps in easing lockdown restrictions, (including: opening primary schools, car showrooms, open-air markets and enabling groups of six to meet up) many parts of the country are still feeling the effects of the crisis.
With Transact Pro’s gateway, doctors can offer one-click billing and payments to patients
Hopdoc launched the cloud-based solution in the US in early April, and the UK is its second market. The solution is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), and will be free for independent doctors and clinics during the COVID-19 crisis.
With Transact Pro’s gateway, doctors can offer one-click billing and payments to patients, as well as ‘advance’ payment options such recurring instalments by storing customer credit card details.
“Unlike most traditional telemedicine platforms that assign patients to random physicians on each visit, Hopdoc preserves the patient-physician relationship by allowing access to family doctors who know their patients’ backgrounds and medical histories,” says Hopdoc’s CEO John Leu in a statement.
Read more: Colorado National Bank rebrands to Transact Bank and goes live with Fiserv
The latest partnership with Hopdoc plays into the bank’s domestic and cross-border strategy
In 2018, Transact Bank was bought by the owners of Latvian card acquiring and processing fintech Transact Pro, which is providing the technology to facilitate local and cross-border online payments through the newly launched telehealth platform.
Transact Bank, which underwent a revamp at the end of March, marks one of the first instances of a fintech buying a bank. The acquisition, which cost Transact Pro’s owners Mark Moskvin and Maxim Yaroshewsky $11 million all in, was an opportunity for the fintech to turnaround a bank on the near edge of bankruptcy and reposition it in the fintech industry.
The owners said in March that they wanted to create “the first true platform to support direct domestic and cross-border local payment processing and card issuing”. This sole focus on payment processing and card issuing businesses is rare – if not potentially unheard of – for a national bank.
Its latest partnership with Hopdoc plays into this domestic and cross-border strategy, which CEO Moskvin said in March was designed to establish “a solid presence in the US and EU”.
“We take pride in our nimble approach to responding to partner needs, especially with solutions that help transition to ‘new normal’ methods of interaction,” says Moskvin.
As well as processing payments in the telehealth sector, Transact Bank is looking to expand its services into include bank card acquiring, bank transfers, foreign exchange services, EU-issued cards, and bank accounts which form a bridge between the US and EU.
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