I would say that several members do not take
full advantage of the capabilities that Eurogiro
offers because they sometimes delay IT
investment or some necessary adjustments
they need to implement or, for example, they
delay the build of a connection with other
members to start a payments corridor. For
instance, in East Asia and the Pacific region,
remittances are projected to grow 7% in 2015
to exceed $ 127 billion, which means that the
market size is very important and still partially
unattended.
The payment industry is experiencing in-
creased competition from known and new
providers. How do you see the role of new
types of payment providers in connection
to Eurogiro?
The Eurogiro community is unique and is very
difficult to replicate in the short term. It took
several years to connect so many countries,
geographies, cultures and companies under a
common ground of understanding.
Nowadays Eurogiro needs to work internally
to absorb, adapt and develop:
(i) absorb the new market trends in the
payments and money transfer businesses
(ii) adapt its business model to grow with
these trends and always focus on
delivering value/service to its
members and
(iii) enhance its offer and the services
rendered in a seamless way enabling all
its members to take advantage of it and to
grow more as financial players.
Africa is becoming more and more impor-
tant in the global payments market and
Portugal and indeed CTT has rich African
contacts. How do you see this market
developing in the future and how could
Eurogiro take a constructive role?
Africa is a region with several opportunities to
grow its payments industry, enabling several
countries to migrate to the new more sophisti-
cated payment solutions like the mobile wallet,
virtual money and others, without needing the
strong and complex investment required for
the traditional payment instruments (ATM’s,
wire transfer, etc.). The political complexity of
the region brings a new challenge since there
are several different levels of development
amongst African countries and a clear distinc-
tion between north and south.
Portugal has close cultural, political and
also economic relations with some African
countries (the PALOP organisation, involving
the Portuguese speaking countries in Africa)
which may allow CTT to have a disproportion-
ately higher contribution for the development
of Eurogiro in this region. Remittances to
Sub-Saharan Africa are expected to reach
$34 billion in 2015 and represent a relevant
part of GDP for some countries and a source
of foreign exchange reserves in others.
Eurogiro is a community that includes
a very diverse group of member organ-
isations. What do you see as the most
important priorities to keep Eurogiro and
our service offering valuable to members?
Reach, flexibility, simplicity and innova-
tion.
Reach:
enlarge the number of members,
namely within the developing countries of Asia
and Africa. For that, a seamless process of
integration of the Eurogiro IT platform always
needs to be a priority.
Flexibility:
we need to understand the di-
versity of our members, (e.g. geographically)
and their business models, in order to adapt
our offer to suit all off them in the best way
possible, without compromising the value of a
common standard.
Simplicity:
the world is becoming more com-
plicated with each day and companies and
individuals look for solutions that may simplify
their daily routine. Any developments need to
have this in mind.
Innovation:
Eurogiro needs to take advantage
of its large community to always offer them the
best solution in the market, following the value
creation trends and capturing any disruptive
innovation that may arise in the future.
This interview has been abbreviated. Read
the full version on
3
By André Gorjão Costa
Eurogiro needs to take
advantage of its large
community to offer the best
solution in the market
Africa is a region with several
opportunities to grow its
payments industry
Frontpage
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