PaymentGenes Q2 2020
FINTECH MAGAZINE By payments people. For payments people.
THIS ISSUE: Remote Working
CONTEN Contents 6
A Predictive Analytics Platform
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Why are merchants still paying to accept transactions?
Special Feature How to navigate your business working remotely during the pandemic.
NTS
Quarterly FinTech Magazine
Clickable Content This icon indicates that you can reach an external complementary content.
22 Moving Beyond Cashless
How innovative payments technology makes the act of payment disappear?
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28 35 TOP JOBS
Article Is FinTech immune to the virus?
A selection of jobs in payments & FinTech by PaymentGenes.
PaymentGenes Q2 2020 3
RECRUITMENT
CONSULTANCY
EXECUTIVE SEARCH
MARKETING
INTERIM RECRUITMENT
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FOREWORD Dear readers, January 2020 and April 2020 seem like two different worlds. In 3 months the complete global population went from “normal” to experiencing the far-reaching implications of the current outbreak. With the current limiting factors in business and personal life, one might ask how this will impact FinTech & Payments. As the global population is adapting to a social distancing society, a contactless standard is growing among consumers. Given the fact that countries around the world are exploring exit-strategies, this magazine shines a light on a post-corona world. If you are curious about how predictive analytics could detect early warning signals as a means to asses potential risk before they can cause financial damage by Owlin. Visualised in the Flybe case.
With the push for frictionless payments, there’s an essential component that supports this development: The Security aspect. Read G+D Mobile Security’s feature on frictionless payments. Are Biometric authenticated payments the solution for Merchants and consumers in a contactless world? Exclusive insights into the nearby future where you can PayByFace. Furthermore, this edition contains our “How to navigate your business remotely” employer guide as well as our joyful “Honey, I’m home… office?!” Tips and tricks for all professionals. Jamyl Jonker Marketing Manager & Partnerships
In a world where merchants are of huge importance, CreditClick is asking the question: Why are merchants still paying to accept transactions? Email: info@paymentgenes.com
Website: www.paymentgenes.com
Address: Generaal Vatterstraat 82 Telephone: +31 20 2444826 1059 BW Amsterdam The Netherlands
PaymentGenes Q2 2020 5
Partner Feature
A Predictive Analytics Platform Owlin’s solution helps Payment Solution Providers monitor their merchant portfolios, and detect early warning signals as a means to assess potential risks before they cause financial damage. In these dynamic times for the Payment Services industry, Owlin can be a very important piece of tooling. The tooling analyses news from a great number of diverse sources, and covers a variety of languages to flag emerging risks if needed.
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INDUSTRY CHALLENGES With a number of players strongly positioned in the market, and having consolidated relationships with big merchants, new players in the payments services industry have to find innovative and disruptive ways to attract their targets, dividing the merchant market into three main categories. The first group are merchants considered as low-risk, which typically belong to relatively safe industries, are located in regulated countries and are profitable. These merchants tend to work with multiple Payment Solution Providers, and typically have the upper hand when it comes to negotiating on e.g. commission rates. The other group are merchants considered as high-risk, which belong to more risky industries and have lower levels of profitability. They often allow higher revenues for Payment Service Providers, involve less parties, and thus possess less negotiating power. A wide range of merchants can also be considered hybrid, meaning that they are risky but they still work with multiple providers and allow for huge revenues because of superior scale.
Airlines are a good example of that many parties would like to work with Airlines, but almost all of them are financially weak. Reading the word combination highrisk, one would think of merchants active mainly in the fields of Gambling, Gaming or Online Trading. This list, however, as mentioned often extends towards fields like Travel, Software, or Digital Goods. Nevertheless, information within each of these sectors is absolutely crucial in both, vendor onboarding, as well as vendor monitoring processes, as potential troubles can result in financial losses on the side of Payment Service Providers.
Owlin’s Mobile Application
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Partner Feature
“A major focus point for a payment party is the outstanding risk on their merchants” A major focus point for a payment party is the outstanding risk on their merchants, but often due to the size of their merchant portfolio, responding timely enough becomes also challenging. Next to this, events like fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy or mistreating employees can have a significant impact. Where action is taken after the actual event due to decreasing margins on sales for instance, the payment parties need to be better equipped in handling emerging risk cases.
COVID-19 IMPACT Last but unfortunately not least, the COVID-19 outbreak has had a major impact on PSPs’ revenues. Vendors strongly focussed on verticals as Travel, Hospitality and Transportation suffered major losses, and have been struggling to see a silver lining.
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The virtual shutdown of major global industries, the postponement or cancellation of major events, and localized “shelter-in-place policies” will adversely affect transaction activity and volume in the near term. Payments companies with diverse industry and geographic exposure will be best positioned. Again, diversification, flexibility and a nimble approach is what C-level payments executives need in order to rock the boat in these choppy waters.
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HIGHLIGHTING ACTIVITY IN THE PSP LANDSCAPE Within its product offering, Owlin found its sweet spot among clients in the payments industry, helping market leaders like Adyen, Ingenico, or Wirecard. Through closely working with these clients, we adjusted a number of crucial product components in order to help with a number of Key Performance Indicators of Payment Service Providers such as: Speeding up the vendor onboarding process, Improving existing vendor monitoring, Retrieving crucial information from a wide variety of sources and thus enabling for true all-round ongoing monitoring.
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Partner Feature
“income falls” “sales down” “sales slide” “shares slide” “name chief” “name executive” “struggling” “acquired” “overname” “acquisition”
“new merger” “war” “restructing” “doubts”
“court” “case against” “charged against” “case loses” “loses” “charged unfair”
Revealed: Flybe to drop eight... halsteadgazette.co.uk 14th November 2019 01:01:10...
Flybe in ‘rescue’ talks to avo... dailybusinessgroup.co.uk 12th January 2020 23:59:21...
Flybe Bankruptcy Analysis
“complaints” “appalling”
16 October
31 October
15 November
4 January
14 January
The FlyBe Case The above graphic is a good example of Owlin’s capabilities. It shows Early Warning Signals eventually leading to the British airline Flybe bankruptcy, in February 2020. Owlin flags and warns risk events affecting companies such as Flybe, by using complex distance-based risk taxonomies looking into potential catalysts related to news about the entity in question.
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Early risk is functional to prevent vast losses, which could result e.g. from chargebacks or fraud. Following warnings and extraction of main risk words, which receive a specific score based on their seriousness, our clients in the Payment Services industry can take measures and adjust margins, increase fees, or freeze business activities with their counterparts according to the riskiness of the event. █
Flybe collapses as coronavirus... thetimes.co.uk 5th March 2020 07:00:00
“collapse imminent” “operator collapse” “company collapse” “company collapses” “government rescue” “collapse” “problem” “serious” “serious problem” “threat”
Flybe on verge of administr... thetelegraphandarhus.co.uk... 5th March 2020 00:13:38... Flybe crisis as 100m bailout... dailyexpress.co.uk 4th March 2020 14:01:00
Flybe could receive 100m bail... lbcnews.co.uk 13th January 2020 11:14:51
19 January
13 February
“collapse imminent” “collapse verge” “firm collapse” “brink bankruptcy” “to bankruptcy”
“at risk” “breaches law” “collapse” “crisis” “deny”
4 March
Owlin offers a 360º degree view platform, which helps Payment Service Providers onboard, and monitor large portfolios of counterparties in a pro-active, continuous, and near real-time manner. To do this, Owlin taps into more than 3 Million online news sources in 12 languages and uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) and AI to automatically retrieve sentiment related insights.
Where are we heading after the COVID-19 turmoil is over? Download Owlin’s white paper
PaymentGenes Q2 2020 11
Partner Feature
Feature by
Why are merchants still paying to accept transactions? I often get the question from merchants and payment service providers why we don’t charge any cost to the merchants to accept CreditClick transactions. You should re-think the question and ask the opposite: Why are you still paying to accept transactions at all?
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Jeroen Mulder Co-founder and Commercial Director at CreditClick
Quarterly FinTech Magazine
So what is CreditClick? For Consumers: CreditClick is a new way of paying for your online purchases. Instead of paying immediately the full amount at purchase or at delivery, CreditClick offers you the possibility to take a loan and spread the cost over several months or even years. Why pay now a big amount if you can spread the costs? For Merchants: As a merchant you are given the opportunity to increase your conversion rates by enabling consumers to buy with a loan to create instant buying power and, therefore instant extra sales at no risk or additional costs.
The CreditClick platform gives the capability to create substantial new business in the online eCommerce world at no cost. This makes CreditClick the first truly free payment method for merchants.
How is CreditClick disrupting the payment industry? Most of today’s payment products are based on a traditional and existing infrastructure and business agreements created in the last century. Deploying new payment solutions that don’t rely on legacy players, requires a new and modern approach. For that we have created a new business model, that enables Merchants to accept
Watch CreditClick video! PaymentGenes Q2 2020 13
Partner Feature
CreditClick without any additional cost. We have created a modern platform following the latest technologies, which allows our customers and partners to have a painless integration process. Through our modern RESTful API, we offer a future-proof gateway, which connects PSPs easily to the e-Commerce and POS world. We realize integration in days, not months.
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What makes CreditClick unique? As CreditClick is a new payment method that enables instant and real time online credit as a payment method for your customers, a customer has to register only once. After which he/ she has been scored positively, his/ her credit facility is opened. This credit line can then be used instantly to purchase goods and services in your online store during checkout. The merchant receives the full purchase amount the next working day. This will allow the merchant to increase the conversion rate without any additional costs or delay in receiving revenue.
The CreditClick e-Commerce consumer flow
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Is CreditClick a local or global solution? Today CreditClick is accepted in The Netherlands and Germany. Our goal is to make CreditClick a Pan-European solution that can be used cross border by both consumers as well as Merchants. Today German consumers
can use CreditClick in Dutch shops, while Dutch consumers can use CreditClick in German shops. As we are expanding our acceptance footprint and credit scoring capability across Europe, we soon will see CreditClick as a payment method in most European countries.
€ 299,00 or €20,00 p/m CreditClick, the new way to pay for your online purchases. Stop paying the full amount at once, and pay in instalments with a monthly amount that suits you. Ideal when the large transaction just does not work out.
CreditClick pricing model
Here are a few examples: Amount
€299,00
€500,00
€1.000,00
Monthly
€20,00
€20,00
€20,00
APP/Debit Interest* 13.5%
13.5%
13.5%
Terms
17 months
30 months
74 months
Interest
€30,54
€90,42
€477,91
Total
€330,44
€590,42
€1.477,91
*Variable percentage *APP: Annual percentage rate of charge
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Partner Feature
Go to the cash register
Choose on the terminal to pay with CreditClick
An omnichannel payment method?
Scan the generated QR code with your phone
Your transaction is approved!
The CreditClick in-store consumer flow
CreditClick is not only a new payment method for eCommerce merchants, it also features a physical in-store proposition leveraging the QR technology that is being pushed into retail Point of Sale devices by other payment methods. Once a consumer is a CreditClick user, he/she can seamlessly use their CreditClick account to pay for purchases at CreditClick POS enabled stores. â–ˆ
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About Jeroen Mulder Jeroen Mulder has 15 years of experience in the payment industry. Held various positions from sales director to global product manager. Known in the payment industry as a thought leader and speaker on dozens of payment conferences throughout the years.
SPECIAL FEATURE
How to Navigate Your Business Working Remotely? Raising Your Level of Performance During The COVID-19 Home Office
The vast majority of payments, FinTech, and other preliminary digital-first companies are working from home. Establishing a solid plan to raise your level of performance working from a remote environment is essential. This includes taking care of the logistic, as well as the mental comfort behind this transition. Your success lays in communication and trust among other key factors. Read the following employer and employee guide to find out how‌
REMOTE WORKING
DIGITAL ONBOARDING:
How to secure talent when your office is closed? Your company does not need to press the pause button. Companies’ recruitment processes have moved online due to the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak. As organisations around the world acted immediately according to the health advice given by governments and health associations, in-person interviews and onboarding processes are taking a new form - a complete shift to virtual platforms. The new remote protocols, do not need to interfere with your hiring needs. The basis of a successful onboarding is a seamless experience for your new hire. This requires extensive planning and coordination with various employees within the company. It is challenging enough when you are welcoming a new team member in your office, so when you do it virtually you need to take a step further.
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Preboarding It is important to connect with your new hire immediately after signing a contract and create a feeling of belonging way before their start day.
First Day The first impression your new hire gets is very important. Giving a warm welcome and creating a good feeling is found to affect 90% of employees’ decision to stay long-term. Little things such as sending them a care-package and showing involvement by frequent video calls can be a game-changer.
SPECIAL FEATURE
First Month - Orientation • Before starting the onboarding • Create an engaging digital onboarding. This could be achieved of a new hire, make sure your inthrough video conference classternal processes and documenes/presentations for orientation. tation are organised and up to Be sure to successfully commudate. Create a clear agenda and nicate the company’s culture communicate expectations with and values as your new hire your new employee. would not be able to observe • As your new hire will not have the that in an office environment. chance to meet the team organically in the office, you need to • You want your new hire to feel supported and have someone make sure that this introduction to rely on. Create a “Buddy syshappens virtually. Scheduling tem” and match your new em“Getting-to-know-the-team” ployee with someone that has calls is crucial for integration. been within the company for a while and can provide guidance.
Moving your processes to digital platforms by leveraging technology and using communication tools is integral for the future of businesses. Companies need to adjust and become comfortable with hiring digitally and provide a warm and engaging welcoming to their new hires. This is possible with the right amount of planning, coordination, and digital communication tools. Schedule a one-to-one with our CEO, Bram Vreugdenhil to discuss digital onboarding, digital interviews or other topics. PaymentGenes Q2 2020 19
REMOTE WORKING
How to manage your team working remotely? How to establish effective communication without in-person cues and get closer to success: Keep your team updated. It is essential to consistently inform your team about the progress and the state of the company. Create allteam and one-on-one meetings to touch base and share your thoughts. Trust your team. Surveillance can turn to be counterproductive. You need to trust your employees and be result-oriented when evaluating productivity.
Set clear expectations. When deprived of the opportunity to observe employee’s progress and rely on listening, learning and understanding each other in a shared environment, being specific about your goals is vital. Share each others’ accomplishments. Establishing daily check-ins with the team and sharing your progress reinforces collaboration, increases mutual knowledge, and reduces the sense of isolation. Support and encourage. Be present and support your team throughout their struggles and concerns. This would result in a feeling of focus and determination, and reduced levels of stress.
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SPECIAL FEATURE
Working remotely & taking care of your mental health Bring structure to your days. Create a routine, not only have a todo list but also plan out your breaks and time for relaxation. Ideally, try to keep as much of your old habits as possible. Share your thought and experiences. Openly share your feelings and create a safe environment where you can rely on each other. Saying things out loud can do magic. Don’t forget to socialize. Include time for socializing in your agenda. Spend one of your breaks talking to a team member with a virtual cup of coffee. Even at the office, not everything is about work.
Organizing virtual training sessions with your teammates can elevate the team spirit.
Take care of your body. Having your body in balance is directly related to your mental health and the successful execution of your job. An active routine will give you a boost of positive energy and productivity. Nourish your mind. Your mind can benefit greatly from the creation of new connections in the brain. This can be achieved through reading books, listening to podcasts, joining online courses and mind games. █
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HOW INNOVATIVE PAYMENT TECHNOLOGY MAKES THE ACT OF PAYMENT DISAPPEAR?
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As new digitalized use cases seem to just “happen” in our daily lives, with the so called Big Techs driving many of these initiatives, what if the act of payment also would disappear completely? Jukka Yliuntinen, VP at Giesecke+Devrient (G+D), gives his views on frictionless payment, and discuss the fact that there will come a time when we won’t consciously need to pay at all. The age of digital transformation has great opportunities at hand for Banks. Clever identity verification systems such as biometrics allow customers to skip remembering clumsy password combinations for online platforms, and numerous PINs for cards and services. New technologies allow the act of payment itself to slip into the background, unnoticed. But the question is: do we want this? And how safe it is?
Jukka says, “Some of the Banks introduced SCA in a way that, yes, complies with PSD2 requirements for strong authentication and gives me as the customer a certain reassurance that, OK, something must now be secure because you need to have, for example, a secondary password. But if you need to start introducing that at point of sale...forget it. People start looking for something else.”
As more banks embrace the opportunities enabled with digitalizing their banking infrastructure, securing the same will also come under even more scrutiny. And although the race to meet PSD2’s September 2019 cut-off for technical implementation is now in the past, the Europe-wide delays to the implementation to Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) mean there is an ongoing lack of clarity around how secure payments that incorporate SCA will marry up with fast, frictionless payment in different channels.
Want to know more about Jukka and his views on digitalization of payments? Click for the video!
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Partner Feature
With Big Techs betting heavily on digital payments, some degree of digital wallet consolidation seems likely in 2020, along with a push to get more merchants and consumers on-board. Big Techs are in a strong position because they get to say how their devices and services are designed to make and protect a payment, Jukka explains. “They can impact the user experience much better than anyone else.” In addition, they also have access to a vast amount of data on their customers’ desires, preferences and spending habits, giving them further opportunity to deliver finely-tuned customer experiences. Think of Uber, for example, which has built its business model around effortless forms of payment, charging customers automatically after every ride. Or Amazon’s headline-grabbing Amazon Go stores, which allow customers to walk in, pluck items off the shelves, and walk out again without ever coming into contact with a POS terminal.
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“Payment is simply a means of acquiring something, and if consumers can carry out the process in a frictionless way that is invisible to them, that is where we will go,” says Jukka. In payment terms this is invisible. In practice, that means that instead of customers having to input their information to pay online or in-store, it is automatically loaded from their digital wallet to deliver a truly frictionless experience. And here G+D plays a big role in the industry. “Our aim is to look beyond our customers, to understand what our customers’ customers need.
We can provide our client with the user interface, such as an app on a mobile device with a wallet, then the server infrastructure, the management of the credentials on those wallets and lifecycle management. An example of considering the consumer would be providing a feature so that a wallet can be locked if a phone goes missing, then unlocked when it is found,” says Jukka. How do we do it? Check it out!
He continues: “One of the solutions we offer is a seamless payment experience, which could be a payment wallet, including secure customer authentication with the convenience of biometrics. In times when the way we interact with each other changes, how we shop, how we pay, like where we are today, enabling these solutions
Watch this video and see how easily you can use Biometrics for payment! can be of great benefit for both retailers and customers, without disrupting the act of payment. Beneath that is a strong cryptography system – invisible to the user – that‘s connected to our systems, the Bank‘s systems and the networks, so that payment can be made with digital credentials.” Never the less, some friction is also good in order to provide assurance of being in control, and it is important that the customer can choose how much friction they want to apply when it comes to pay. This is where we are now. In future, embedded AI features in a variety of PaymentGenes Q2 2020 25
Partner Feature
other devices could also be used to execute pre-authorised payments on our behalf. But as with many other forms of invisible payment, these kinds of cutting-edge services will need to prove they’re secure and reliable to achieve widespread adoption. Jukka sums up: “High on the agenda in 2020 will be biometric security, as more Banks and FinTechs roll-out technologies that use a customer’s biological characteristics to verify payments. In fact, we launched a very successful pilot with Crédit Agricole last year with a biometric fingerprint payment card – an example of the kind of innovation that is becoming more commonplace as biometrics becomes an ingrained part of the payments space.” “We can have cash, take notes from a wallet, hand it over, get coins in change and a physical receipt. Or we can use a card or mobile, but with this there‘s no longer anything physical being exchanged, and the receipt could be sent electronically. The next step is the consumer walks into a shop, they are identified and payment happens in the background.” █
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Did you know? G+D technology is unconsciously used by billions of people every day! With more than 700 global banks putting their trust in G+D and our offerings, we enable secure and convenient transactions for everyday usage. Founded in 1852 in Leipzig as a printer of Bank notes, now with HQ in Munich, G+D is a global powerhouse in payments - be via cash, card or digital services. Our safe payments technology, elegantly combined with smooth customer experiences throughout the whole customer journey, secures the daily life use of financial services. And also creates customer obsession for our clients!
We are: pioneers in payments, industry leader and innovating partner for the financial sector.
Honey, I’m home...
...office?!
Check out our tips for the home office life!
Partner Feature
Envisioning a New Payment Industry Standard with
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B
iometric Authenticated payments are gaining popularity rapidly in countries which are on the forefront of digital payment developments. With global transaction values estimated at $254 million in 2024, it begs the question not if, but when Biometric payments will be the new industry and consumer standard. Exploring how the Asia Pacific region has largely adopted to the contactless payments comes down to a specific returning factor: The push for digitisation, supported by infrastructure & governments. Currently, we are experiencing a global society in which frictionless & contactless is the new standard. The corona virus has made the entire world question everyday activities, in which payments play a specific role. In well-developed countries, cash is no longer a preferred or accepted payment method. Touching the pin pad at the grocery store is preferably avoided. But what if this hassle could be a thing of the past?
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Consumers and merchants can now pay for goods and services with PayByFaceŽ — a biometric cashless checkout system that provides a completely contactless payment platform using only advanced facial recognition. Founded in October 2019 by global serial entrepreneur Mihai Draghici and Co-Founder Shefket Robelli, their mission is to provide a seamless and secure digital payment ecosystem for a faster and more convenient shopping experience. PayByFaceŽ also aims to bring a high-end solution to retailers to provide additional payment options to their customers.
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Partner Feature
PayByFace® was accepted into the Startupbootcamp Commerce 2020 Accelerator program in Amsterdam to refine their product offering and design a repeatable and scalable business model to deliver a new way to pay worldwide. In April, PayByFace® takes part of the VISA Innovation Program, as one of the five Fintech Disruptors, in Bulgaria. They are also a member of the Romanian Fintech Association and are participating in the Founder Institute program in Bucharest, Romania. PayByFace® is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands (engineering, management & support) and Zurich, Switzerland (sales, marketing & customer service) with additional exclusive partnerships throughout the world. Since the beginning of the year, the company has expanded their operations to over 10 countries including India, South Africa and several regions throughout Europe. “Within today’s times, it is a responsibility for all fintech entrepreneurs to rethink and bring innovative solutions to the digital payment space,” said Founder & CEO Mihai Draghici.
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“We’ve simplified how consumers can pay for their favorite goods and services without their phones or wallets. PayByFace® is even more relevant during this global crisis when people are searching for ways to avoid physical contact and stay at home or just want to untether themselves from carrying cash and cards while shopping.”
PayByFace on Mobile Pos
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Curious to see what a PayByFace authenticated payment looks like? Click to watch.
1:54
The company’s leadership also expects to raise Series A investment round by end of this year and roll-out more innovative products for the restaurant and bar industry thanks to the arrival of their new senior advisor, Emanuele Conti-Vecchi who has joined PayByFace® as Chief Financial Officer. Indeed, beyond his strong financial skills, Emanuele who is currently coordinating the capital raising process, has a deep understanding of the food delivery industry and the challenging dynamics the sector is facing at the moment, due to his 5 years’ experience within the SushiShop group. “PaybyFace is attracting a strong investor interest because of its disruptive business model and its versatile application potential in the “retail and banking sectors” says the recently appointed CFO. █ Download the PayByFace® e-wallet app from Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store and register for an account. You’re one step closer to using your “selfie” to purchase items with participating merchants that are using PayByFace® Merchant app. The company recently updated this app for home delivery services for merchants, enabling them to take a completely contactless payment or receiving a cashless tip from a client without direct contact at the client’s doorstep! Find out more at www.paybyface.io. PaymentGenes Q2 2020 31
Article
IS FINTECH IMMUNE TO THE VIRUS? New consumption habits will persist beyond the crisis. The rapidly changing business environment requires immediate and proactive adjustments to satisfying customer needs. The limitation on interaction and movement is encouraging a change in behavior that needs to be considered when mapping out the future of your business in this new reality. The always-connected customer and his ability to control almost every aspect of his life from his living room is more applicable now than ever before. The need to get out in the 32 PaymentGenes Q2 2020
community is getting reduced by the second. Online shopping was a noticeably growing trend even before the outbreak. During Cyber Monday in 2019 over 9.4 billion dollars were spent on online shopping within the U.S. The projected e-commerce spending for the holiday season in 2019 in the U.S. was estimated at over 135 billion dollars. With the current situation, consumers will develop even a deeper habit of tackling matters online. Digital adoption is at the heart of our new behavior. This behavioral change can potentially establish a permanent transition of how we do things.
Quarterly FinTech Magazine
This is the chance for the e-commerce industry and financial service providers to build trust among its new customers and sustain their loyalty after the outbreak. Indeed, as eCommerce is solving several issues at the moment, consumers become more and more adjusted to these ways. In China, we already observe post-recovery strategizing that includes a full-scale digitalization across all industries.
“People are gradually moving from offline shopping to online and the habit won’t disappear when the epidemic is over. This will have a very positive impact on the whole eCommerce industry.” - Zhong Zhenshan, Vice-president of emerging technology research, IDC. The novel coronavirus pandemic is further shining a light on the vast opportunities FinTechs have to offer. We observe an increase in the usage of online financial services, electronic and contactless payments, digital mortgages, etc.
There is a 72% rise in the use of FinTech apps in Europe (research by deVere Group). Examples: Symphony is a provider of instant messaging for bankers. Their messaging activity increased by 40% since mid-January. The volume of attachments to instant messages such as PDFs, Word files, PowerPoint presentations surged by 500%. Blend is a digital mortgage software provider. The volume of refinancing applications grew with 1500% to 2000% from the same time last year. There is 85% to 95% increase in mortgage purchase applications processing daily loan values as high as $8 billion. Covid-19 represents an extreme challenge for today’s world and businesses but due to the high dependency on e-commerce, digital delivery, and online payments, a progression of those sectors is expected. This situation may turn into a catalyst for the mass adoption and evolution of FinTech products.
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Article
With the preference to stay at home in the current situation, e-commerce (especially food ordering) is getting a boost as consumers prefer buying groceries and daily needs online. We observe a sudden increase of 20% - 30% in demand on Amazon, Flipkart, etc. Due to increased e-commerce shopping, online payments are surging. It is unlikely that FinTechs within the payments sector will be hit by the outbreak. So far, digital banks have struggled with a lack of trust and as a result, consumers use them as secondary accounts. However, Challenger banks already have the benefit that many of their processes are not human and paper-driven, but reliant on mobile-only banking and digital onboarding. The reality right now more than ever allows us to peek into a future without POS terminals, touchpads and cash. A world where financial matters are tackled online and customer support is done through highly intelligent AI-powered Chatbots. █
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Opportunities:Â Increased desire for digital banking services. Traditional banks and credit unions may seek assistance from FinTechs. Increased support. Government organizations and regulations may support FinTechs to battle weakening economies and introducing Fintech digital solutions Complete digitalisation. Due to the pandemic, all companies will have to go fully digital (to survive) and after this will continue to be digital. Therefore, there are opportunities for building digital platforms or develop already existing ones. More talent. Companies are now able to hire the best possible talent as the market is less tensed and there are more available options and more committed candidates.
TOP JOBS April
Senior Entreprise Sales Manager - Travel BERLIN
Switching jobs during a global pandemic are met with a variety of feelings and we understand that. However, we are experiencing unmatched commitment from clients looking for talent, looking for you. Please reach out to us if you are curious about new opportunities, as well as any questions related to the current situation and hiring.
VP Partner Management LONDON
Get in touch with: Marek Buenting +31 615642798
Get in touch with: Sonia Morozova +31 636074554
marek@paymentgenes.com
sonia@paymentgenes.com
Principal Software Engineer DORTMUND
Senior Entreprise Account Executive AMSTERDAM
Get in touch with: Jonathan Pothuis +31 634261457
Get in touch with: Anne Holtman +31 630719311
jonathan@paymentgenes.com
anne@paymentgenes.com
FullStack Developer BERLIN
Get in touch with: Borja Gonzalez +31 617451273 borja@paymentgenes.com
Sales Manager BRUSSELS
Get in touch with: Alexis Le Pays du Teilleul +33 695496962 alexis@paymentgenes.com PaymentGenes Q1 2020 35
Recruitment. Personified. PaymentGenes exists to help payment and FinTech companies grow.
We build teams across a variety of positions including commercial, product, project, compliance, and IT.
Our expertise lies in C-level, senior & middle management, and senior experience roles.
www.paymentgenes.com // info@paymentgenes.com // +31 20 2444826
