Although it is always extremely difficult to make predictions about an industry which changes as fast as online payments (including online bill presentment) there are always a few “clues, trends and patterns” around to draw upon. As a result and as it’s close to the start of a new year, in this article we will seek to make a few predictions about what is likely to happen in the near future. To do this we will use a number of key headings that are often seen to be important in this industry.
The general changes that we can expect
In broad terms, the payments landscape (which is still very paper or physical form-based in so many ways) will continue to switch inexorably to an online environment at many levels with “barcode type” paper to replace physical monetary exchange products like cheques and cash in the next few years and possibly even Card (debit, credit and pre-paid) in the more distant future. The market will increasingly use smart phone and PC tablet as a channel, although the infrastructure required to support this will take as long as 20 years to make the full transition.
Online person-to-person or P2P payments will increase using mobile devices or social network sites as the initiation point. In the early days of this transition, bank account details will need to be known but accessing and using cleared funds (as the way customers want to interact will each) will see more new players emerging outside of the traditional banking community.
While banks are competing with each other for market share, new players entirely are likely to be able to capture payment market share away from their base, by better satisfying the needs of market. PayPal, Google & Apple are good examples of this or it may be entirely new companies that are yet to become well-known.
The cultural shift to perform everyday functions on-line is still in its infancy. While on-line shopping is growing exponentially, other behaviour will move more towards online. For example, full digital bill presentment and payment services.
So, if that’s the general scene, let’s look at what might happen under a few specific headings
TIMELINESS & CHOICE
Customers want to choose when they pay, day or night, 24/7, 365 days of the year and whether to pay ‘just in time’ or in real time. Customers want very wide payment type options and the ability to choose which option best suits each payment activity.
In many cases, recipients of funds prefer real-time or same-day settlement. Surety of settlement in real time will be critical in most cases.
ACCESSIBILITY
Customers want to access the same payment options regardless of the channel by which they pay. For example, this may be the same payment choice regardless of whether they are in a store, at an on-line store or paying a bill.
Merchants will increasingly prefer to receive funds from the same payment options, regardless of channel, to reduce vendor management and improve internal efficiencies.
EASE OF USE
Customer like payment types that are easy to use and one they understand and trust. Mobile, PC tablet & social network usage is making the introduction of new payment processes easier to manage and educate the market, but present other challenges for the payment industry as a whole.
EASE OF INTEGRATION WITH OTHER PROCESSES
Online payments will grow steadily and will ultimately dominate the payment landscape. However, capability and capacity to integrate with internal computer systems will be a barrier that will need to be overcome. Seamless integration with Point-of-Sale systems, on-line store, ERP, inventory systems and billing engines will be a critical factor.
Cloud-based technology will assist in keeping capital outlay lower and at manageable levels while providing high speed access to the payment instruments and associated internal systems.
RELIABILITY
The new payment instruments and channels that arise will need to be ever more reliable. Traditional payment providers can still play a huge role in ensuring that high quality standards and suitable interoperability is maintained ensure the instrument can be trusted.
Convenience can sometimes trump reliability, but both having both is likely to be a winning combination.
PRICING
New payment instruments will have to be cost effective is all cases and this will start to happen slowly.
What is blurring the price aspect is merchants will try to demand low transactional costs even when real demonstrable value is being added. For example, instant bank transfer provides significantly more benefits to both a consumer and a merchant and yet the expectation would be that this should be priced the same as, or even lower than, the transactional cost to write a paper-based cheque.
Another example is that presenting an electronic invoice with a wide range of payment options would be significantly more cost effective than a biller managing their own bill collection, even though individual transaction pricing by payment type may be more expensive in that particular silo.
SECURITY AND ROBUSTNESS
Similar to the reliability heading, secure and robust payment instruments will be increasingly essential, although convenience and ease-of-use are considerations that will often dilute how secure and robust the new instrument has to be in practice.
INTEROPERABILITY
All online digital Payment systems will have a much higher degree of interoperability with other systems than they do now. This will apply to the movement of money (where necessary) and more particularly to data transmission. The intelligent design of this data transition process (nationally and internationally) will be done by at least one large player outside current financial services sector or by a new market entrant.
RISK MANAGEMENT
Much richer risk management tools will be available and these will have sophisticated algorithms that track all payment patterns and provide risk attenuation or control options at every level. This is likely to be a new software-based market entrant.
Summary
No-one has a “crystal-ball” to predict the future, but the online payments space is changing rapidly around us. It will be interesting to see whether, we are still heading in the general direction that this article suggests in 12 months time and whether some of the forecasts are starting to come true or not.
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