‘eBilling is likely to be the next wave in mobile payments’, says Peter
Kwakernaak, CEO of AcceptEmail, ‘and it may solve substantial pro-
blems for corporates, as well as private customers’. Peter Kwakernaak
demonstrated how issuing a bill and the payment via email had several
advantages:
•
It digitalizes current paper flow, reduces biller’s costs in all stages of
billing and collection
•
Payment delays go down as payer can view, handle & pay a bill in a
single action
•
More payment options available equals
better acceptance and higher likelihood of
payment
•
It has a low entry barrier as most private
clients trust email, treasure the transpar-
ency, and monitor their email account
regularly
•
Options for extracting intelligence about payment patterns for the biller
as well as service provider
According to AcceptEmail, 20% of customer satisfaction is directly linked
to the bill and the bill payment, and offering multiple options may increase
satisfaction by 43%. Today, less than one fifth of the bills are digitalised.
AcceptEmail exemplifies how a fintech company can set new standards.
To them, the event of instant payments and PSD2, the EU regulation pro-
viding 3
rd
parties controlled access to bank accounts of consumers equals
great opportunities in bill payment. Nevertheless,
Peter Kwakernaak invited the posts in particular to
partner to fill the digital gap in billing, reduce costs
and create loyal SME clients.
The First wave of mobile payments addressed
the P2P space. The next, and potentially far more
lucrative wave in mobile payments is likely to be in
the P2C space.
The ‘Diggers’ Guide’ by Andreas Pratz, ATKearney, summed up his
route to success for banks. ‘Banks have reach and rails to dig out the
value’, Andreas Pratz observed, before outlining the major disruptors to
traditional payments, using Europe as the reference point. Customers
expecting real-time service and getting it from Fintechs and mobile
operators had disruptive potential. Regulators pushed in
the same direction, forcing banks to open
access to non-banks to their accounts
and infrastructures (e.g PSD2), whilst they
increased demands to payment security
and digital IDs. Joint infrastructures remain
important to develop new systems in instant
or international payments, whilst new stan-
dards on APIs, for instance, further open up
the banking system to new entrants. On the horizon, to be watched but
not yet with a clear practical impact, was ‘distributed ledger technology’.
While the payments market overall keeps growing, even in mature mar-
kets like North America or Europe, banks should focus on the lucrative
cash displacement opportunity that is still to come
in many areas.
He pointed to SME banking as the main innova-
tion area for new services that banks can provide.
Despite challenges, there were ‘gold to be found’
for institutions who were able to be ‘part of the
flow’.
Disrupt billing, improve payments
Disruptive trends and how to succeed in Payments
Facts about B2C billing in EU and US
€200 billion spent on bills
less than 20% is digitalized
25% pays bills too late
paper bills
and
biller portals
will
drop
(10%annually)
or
stop.
Why should we care?
In December 2013, EBA (The European
Banking Authorities) embargoed virtual
currencies and warned consumers on risks
deriving from buying, holding and trading
virtual currencies (e.g. Bitcoin).
Nevertheless, banks care because they could
risk being cut out of the loop by new providers
offering payments and asset management
that are faster, cheaper, secure and not
controlled by banks. Regulators worry about
virtual currencies being used for criminal pur-
poses and being out of their control. Emerging
payment networks and currency exchange plat-
forms (such as Ripple) offer their services direct
to internet merchants, circumventing banks.
As a result, the industry directs enormous
funds into blockchain projects. R3, by way of
example, was set up as a joint lab to establish
potential use as well as prototypes and stan-
dards. R3 contributors span Microsoft, SWIFT,
IBM, Toyota and a host of prominent global
banks (including ANZ and Deutsche Bank).
In April 2016, it resulted in R3 Corda
TM
, a dis-
tributed ledger designed to manage financial
agreements between financial institutions.
(With thanks to FATF (Jun14), Deutsche Bank
(Jul15), Credit Suisse (Aug16), Lafferty, and
TheFinancer).
“I think these things have the
potential to fundamentally
change how we do things
with money, and banks have
to worry about how to absorb
and leverage it. That applies
to SWIFT as well.” Gottfried
Leibbrandt, CEO SWIFT, The-
Financer 23Sep15
Succeeding in European payments: ‘A Diggers Guide’
Bring the right tools
Strengthen capabilities,esp. in ecom, int’l, smartdata
Partnerwithotherdiggers
EmbraceopenAPIbankingand cooperate
Buildstrong roads to themine
Reduce feature complexity– strengthenACH rails
Bepartof the flow
ID– security–embeddedpayments – logistics – finance
Eurogiro News 5
