Electrum team members attended this conference as a way to identify the latest global trends, meet industry leaders, and learn what our international counterparts are up to.
Two closely-related themes that stood out as particularly relevant for South Africa were the importance of interoperability within the payments space and the rise of embedded finance within the retail market. Both themes speak to the importance of a frictionless and consolidated user experience for consumers – a clear differentiator for any business’s digital marketplace.
Think about interoperability
In terms of interoperability, a sophisticated orchestration layer becomes very important in facilitating a seamless and singular customer experience at the front-end, whilst supporting multiple payment instruments, products and providers. To give your customers the choice they desire for multiple channels and digital product access, your platform should orchestrate as many systems as possible..
As more service providers are offering expanded options for payments and digital products, interoperability between systems is becoming increasingly necessary. A payment switch with sophisticated orchestration functionality will simplify transaction processing for your business: Handling failovers, preferential routing, and processing reversals between your business and service providers.
Whether your business provides a portfolio of VAS products or accepts alternative payment types, this orchestration allows for effortless interoperability between you and your multiple service providers. Fast processing times, no service downtime, and wider choice are many of the ways in which your customer will receive a better product from you.
Read more about how having the right technology is vital when it comes to your omni-channel offering, here.
Keep your eye on embedded finance
Embedded finance in retail/e-commerce refers to the availability of finance and payment alternatives at the point of sale, either in-store or online. This is not a new concept – consider the vehicle finance representative on the car sales floor – but it is gaining traction as retailers continue to develop and evolve their financial service offering at the point of purchase.
The total addressable market is expected to be as high as $3.5 trillion globally by 2030. By moving accounts and payments in-house, merchants not only gain a new source of revenue but begin to accumulate transactional data that can be used to create a more personalised customer experience. This is certainly a trend we have seen playing out in our own market, with the increase in BNPL payment options being a case in point.
In step with global trends
Attending Money 20/20 Europe not only inspired and energised us but also gave us comfort that our own products and strategy are aligned with global trends in the payment space.
This was the first full-capacity event since 2019 and the excitement of gathering together again as an industry was palpable. There were 4,000 attendees from 1,900 companies with strong representation from the payments industry as well as open banking, AI and data analytics, digital identity, and crypto.
Themes such as consumer-centricity, digitisation, channel convergence, and industry interoperability are already central to our thinking and overall mission. We can now bring back and implement new learnings to continue to offer our customers innovative solutions to optimise their VAS and payments business.
We would love to work with you to explore how to modernise your digital goods and services business or payments offering. Contact us here or follow us on LinkedIn for more insights and articles.
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