Growing smartphone penetration, easy access to the internet will lead to an exponential rise in e-payment transactions
The adage “cash is king” rings true in many parts of the world.
Indeed, in developing countries in Asia such as India and Indonesia, cash transactions made up a grand 99.7 per cent and 99.5 per cent of all transactions back in 2010, according to a McKinsey Global Payments report.
These patterns can be partly attributed to the fact that many in developing nations lack access to banks or do not put their savings in banks. And this means debit and credit cards, which have been in circulation in most markets for decades, are closed off to this populace.
But while cash still reigns supreme, the arrival of advanced e-payment technology, has put a dent in this trend.
In fact, between 2010 to 2015, the total amount of cashless transactions in developing nations, owing to the rise of alternative e-payment tech — including prepaid, online and mobile — rose from US$44 billion to US$162 billion.
Indeed, the rapid rise of e-commerce, as well as e-payment technology, has been a major catalyst for the growth of cashless transactions across all countries — both developing and mature markets. In the whole of APAC, the number of mobile payment users rose from 85 million to 163.5 million. More businesses are waking up to the importance of e-payment tech to attract more customers.
Also Read: Elon Musk-backed e-payments company officially launches in Singapore
E-payment platforms are the foundation of any e-commerce business. Building an effective e-payments system is one that is founded on trust – it’s about establishing a solid, long-term, partnership with the business; and it needs to be scalable and robust enough to support both small and large enterprises.
One example is global e-payment for e-commerce provider Braintree – a subsidiary of Paypal.
With platform availability in over 46 markets, accepting over 130 currencies and every major alternative payment type such as Apple and Android Pay, they’re making it easier than ever for businesses to expand their operations and reach new customers across the world.
They host some of the world’s most innovative companies including Uber and Airbnb whom they’ve helped scale their domestic operations internationally, addressing the various payments and regulatory nuances within each market.
Consider traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, many of whom are still using legacy payments. Very often, businesses lose out customers because of unintuitive and sluggish payments process. In a saturated commerce market, businesses win customers by providing seamless ways to transact.
Thus, payments platforms can help open market opportunities to these merchants but revamping their business model by introducing online payments, which can potentially widen their customer base far beyond local markets and also introduce other partnerships with foreign enterprises to boost and scale their businesses – in essence, e-payments can act as bridge for brick-and-mortar businesses to join a larger ecosystem.
In any transaction involving cards, there is a possibility that important card information and security details become compromised.
Also Read: Thailand to welcome national e-payment system, starting in October
Tokenisation helps to bypass this challenge by replacing a card’s information with a 16-digit randomly generated number. It includes the last four digits of the card as well as other sensitive customer information.
This process also eliminates the need to incur high costs to become compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to store credit information onsite.
Offering a seamless payments experience is is a critical part of creating a great online shopping experience , and delivering enhanced value to the customers
After all, even online you’re not merely selling goods, you’re selling an experience.
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Image Credit: dedivan1923 / 123RF Stock Photo
Disclosure: This article was produced by the e27 content marketing team, sponsored by Braintree.
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