Traders And Payment Networks | CFO Tech Outlook
Source: CFO Tech Outlook
A whirlwind of technology and business model creativity is reshaping how customers make payments and how companies accept them. Major technology companies and electronically-based start-ups have introduced dozens of new services and products that challenge existing bank-controlled revenue pools, payment networks, and merchant acquisitions.
In most nations and among each consumer group, this revolution appears to escalate. Payment companies will have to accept the chaos and face the consequences. By face-to-face challenges, well-prepared and flexible merchant acquirers can turn the disorder to their benefit.
There are causes for encouragement, despite the obstacles. Transactions are a large and rising income stream with relatively low fintech demands for wealth — a novelty in financial services. Online transactions continue to demonstrate robust growth, gaining shares in all regions around the world from cash payments to simple market transaction. Debit and credit cards are the predominant non-cash payment platforms. Furthermore, for acquirers, the advent of Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, focused on mobile technology, means that this pattern is likely to continue in many of the largest country markets.
Digital transactions, like traditional e-commerce and digital trading, keep expanding as actively as possible. This strength acquires robust online transaction skills, whereby profitability tends to be higher, partially because the company comes with a greater variety of value-added products like fraud risk management.
From a regional point of view, acquirers committed to developing economies will see increased growth and reduced competition, while having a greater ability to support their margins. Nevertheless, also highly mature markets in Europe and the US, especially in online retail and digital content, will show strong development. There are also incentives for acquirers to see technological changes. Regulators, for instance, kept pushing aggressively on the rate of interchange fees. Moreover, whether individual acquirers ward off the risks and build on the prospects depends on how successfully they cope with specific challenges.
Avoid disintermediation
Acquirers have traditionally worked on both the payment purchase portal and sole acquisition markets, leasing point-of-sale (POS) facilities to larger retailers, and delivering gateway e-commerce services. This has enabled them to wipe out the entire merchant partnership, thereby securing the operating margin end-to-end.
Nonetheless, the environment is shifting as new entrants attack the retailer platform, eventually wresting an advantage, relegating acquirers to service distributor status, and taking the share of the revenue pool on their own. Big domestic corporate retailers took control of their transaction interfaces in mature markets several years ago, and rivalry for their sole acquisition business was price-based, leading to near-zero acquisition margins on the biggest domestic retailers.
Private software developers and value-added resellers, in a specific sector, focus on small to medium-sized businesses to provide POS systems combined with the approval of transactions. They negotiate deals with favored acquirers, taking some of the profit margins of the acquirer.
In the world of e-commerce, these innovations play out even more rapidly. Payment gateways connect the website of a company with the broader world of transactions. In turn, the information stream through these gateways allows these companies to provide consumers with an insight into their financial performance and enhance their advertising and loyalty services.
Install a realistic method for consumer segmentation
International online retailers are the fastest-growing category of sectors like aviation, tourism, media content, gaming and betting, and digital retail. Such businesses have unique needs; they like to have a primary provider offering high-quality service throughout multinational adoption of payments, a vast array of local payments beyond cards, advanced fraud management, and maximization services for acceptance. Like large domestic retailers, also the world’s largest online merchants create competitive profits as they purchase based on the solution’s quality and depth and strength of their relationship with the payment processor.
Regional SMEs, on the other hand, are the source of the profits for domestic consumers. In the local markets that are most advanced. They exercised market influence and are pleased to offer standardized payment terminals to SMEs and to buy services. Acquirers focused on alliances with banks, franchise arrangements and relationships with individual distribution organizations.
The monetary productivity principle in the payment system is no longer producing value. Alternatively, winning acquirers are developing into actual business relationships with their customers by assisting merchants in selling more, lowering costs, and creating better consumer experiences.
