04.10.2016 Views

PCM Vol.2 - Issue 1

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Leverage SEO-optimized Flipbooks, powerful backlinks, and multimedia content to professionally showcase your products and significantly increase your reach.

Exciting stories about developments in the payments world 2016 | + Deep insight into omni-channel strategies<br />

<strong>PCM</strong><br />

Vol 1. <strong>Issue</strong> 7<br />

Dec. 2015<br />

YOUR GATEWAY TO THE WORLD OF PAYMENTS<br />

Blockchain<br />

awakens


Welcome to <strong>Vol.2</strong> - issue 1<br />

You are reading the first issue of the Payments & Cards Magazine in 2016. In order<br />

to keep our clients, associates, subscribers and all payments professionals in the<br />

loop, we have decided to create a monthly magazine.<br />

The first issue of 2016 features an expert interview on omni-channel payments,<br />

thought leader articles, top jobs and more! We’re also introducing a new section<br />

in this issue where we present and discuss insightful infographics provided by our<br />

partners.<br />

The magazine is also a good way for you to keep in touch with what is happening<br />

in the Payments world as well as like minded professionals. If you haven’t checked<br />

in with us lately, we think you will be surprised and excited about all the wonderful<br />

things happening in the industry.We hope to hear from you soon, and we welcome<br />

your feedback!<br />

Throughout each issue, there will be descriptions and lists of events within the<br />

Payments industry happening this month, as well as announcements and the latest<br />

developments & partnerships. If you are a thought leader and would like to be<br />

featured or present your thoughts, please get in touch.<br />

What is more, as a business, the magazine offers you various advertising<br />

possibilities. Want to learn more? Just contact us!<br />

For any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please address them to the editors:<br />

Amir Abdin - amir@paymentsandcardsnetwork.com<br />

Duc Dang - duc@paymentsandcardsnetwork.com<br />

The Payments & Cards Network team wishes you good reading!<br />

002


Letter from the CEO<br />

2015 was a year of change and the beginning of accelerated consolidation in the Payments & Cards<br />

Industry.<br />

We saw some very large processors acquired and new initiatives from innovative merchants as they<br />

build in house payment teams as well as their own platforms.<br />

The Payments & Cards Network was able to strengthen existing relationships with large, international<br />

players as well as gain new clients both on the Merchant, Consulting, Scheme & Processing sides of<br />

the industry.<br />

From a talent perspective, it’s impossible to work with every single business involved in payments so<br />

we have strategically chosen to work with select companies who share their values with us and vice<br />

versa. With this strategy in mind, the Payments & Cards Network has grown 40% as a business in<br />

2015 which has led to an increase of 62% in revenues.<br />

We are very proud to announce our new locations as London and soon to be US offices which will<br />

bolster our offering across the world as we maintain our goal of being the number one global supplier<br />

of talent to the Payments & Cards Industry.<br />

With the increased uncertainty of the political climate in South Africa, despite a very successful year<br />

for us, we have taken the decision to cease our operations in the region and will continue servicing<br />

South Africa & Sub Sahara remotely from our EMEA HQ in Amsterdam. This has not been an easy<br />

decision to make but in the interest of servicing our existing customers globally, we feel resources<br />

can be put to better use elsewhere.<br />

PCN also launched Payment.jobs this year which is the only truly international job board dedicated<br />

to the industry. Early results are good but such as any board of this nature, it will take time to gain<br />

full traction. As every year, it is most important to reflect on goals unrealized and realized but most<br />

importantly the people involved in the success.<br />

It has been our mission from day one to hire individuals who are capable of taking our business to the<br />

next level and work as a team that not only contributes ongoing value to the industry but are proud to<br />

work along side each other. Perhaps our greatest achievement this year has been the continuation of<br />

this success and hiring some very talented individuals who have been able to hit the ground running<br />

and already add to the sterling reputation of our company.<br />

As CEO I could not be happier to be working alongside these individuals and look forward to<br />

welcoming additional members of the team in 2016.<br />

In closing I would like to thank our customers who have supported us from day one as well as new<br />

clients who have just started working with us. We will be issuing our annual quality survey in Q2 of<br />

2016 and I trust results will be even an improvement of 2015.<br />

See you in 2016 and we look forward to seeing you in the network.<br />

Jordan Lawrence<br />

CEO<br />

Payments & Cards Network<br />

003


Contents<br />

thoughtleaders<br />

spotlight<br />

21<br />

5<br />

13<br />

STORIES<br />

5<br />

8<br />

10<br />

13<br />

15<br />

Thought Leaders: Mobile payments plus loyalty incentives<br />

Jide Akindele continues the series about the development of the mobile<br />

payments industry in a promising part of Africa.<br />

Infographic: The State of Fintech Investment in Africa<br />

mondato looks at the opportunities in the African Fintech market.<br />

Thought Leaders: Southeast Asia: 34.5 billion e-commerce future<br />

Aung Kyaw Moe discusses the e-commerce potential in Southeast Asia and<br />

the reasons why the ASEAN powerhouse looks promising.<br />

Thought Leaders: Forget Uber moments, Are we witnessing a napster moment?<br />

Mark Taylor gives us an insight into the perspectives and challenges of the<br />

ever more relevant cryptocurrencies.<br />

Expoert Interview: A roadmap to omni-channel payments<br />

Juspal Manic dives into the world of omni-channel payments and discusses<br />

critical factors when designing this new type of strategy.<br />

15<br />

18<br />

21<br />

24<br />

25<br />

Infographic: Trends in payments solutions<br />

PAYTOO shows us what impact the growth<br />

in mobile phone usage has on the payments<br />

world.<br />

Spotlight: Toast<br />

This time we talk to the Asian P2P money<br />

transfer application maker of Toast.<br />

Hot Jobs<br />

Looking for a new role and exciting challenges<br />

in 2016? Check out our latest job opportunities!<br />

Events<br />

Here we showcase the most exciting upcoming<br />

events in the payment industry.<br />

004


By Jide Akindele<br />

January 8, 2016<br />

Thought Leaders Corner<br />

global<br />

business<br />

This is the fourth edition of Jide Akindele’s<br />

series focusing on the developments in the<br />

payment market in Sub-Sahara Africa<br />

New wave of coming<br />

mobile payments plus loyalty incentives<br />

© SES S.A<br />

2015 was as good year for mobile payments<br />

across the globe. Africa still leads the way in terms<br />

of subscriber adoption globally, however we<br />

have seen various schemes of mobile payments<br />

across the world in different forms, (such as) card<br />

linked, closed loop which currently dominates the<br />

various ecosystems in the battle for dominance.<br />

In 2016 we are of the opinion that the next wave<br />

of mobile payment developments would be in<br />

the infusion of content loyalty schemes side by<br />

side with consumer’s payments. This means<br />

that there would be closer collaboration with<br />

merchants and mobile wallet providers and<br />

PSP’s on the technology side. This, however, will<br />

raise various questions on how and which part<br />

of the consumer’s data is shared, and by what<br />

party, within the value chain taking into account<br />

compliance, regulation and data protection.<br />

Having said that, once the modalities have been<br />

sorted, the advantages would become clearer if<br />

consumer data is profiled in a meaningful way.<br />

This would avoid the wasteful scattered approach<br />

of blasting advertising messages that are not well<br />

targeted. With the linked incentives, purchase<br />

patterns can be established, and bring together<br />

value merchants and processors equally,<br />

benefiting the consumer. This is particularly<br />

important for the Sub-Sahara African markets<br />

where there is a need for cohesion in consumer<br />

data gathering for analytics.<br />

Most consumers are incentivised by special<br />

rewards, offers and discounts associated with<br />

their Mobile app. This is also the case for Mobile<br />

wallet users (Smart phone App users), but not<br />

005


forgetting feature phone users (USSD driven) who<br />

equally participate in mobile commerce, except<br />

not via the internet and can also receive such<br />

incentives via SMS if they do not have access to<br />

the internet. For the USSD users incentives would<br />

be more off-line driven incentives typically driving<br />

them to brick and mortar stores.<br />

According to some live case studies, particularly<br />

in Sub-Sahara Africa, where off-line incentive<br />

programmes associated with mobile wallets took<br />

place over a sixth month period, have shown that<br />

over the campaign period mobile wallet usage<br />

increased transaction payments exponentially.<br />

It was also observed that new adopters also<br />

joined the service due to the incentive offerings,<br />

in addition the retention rates remained<br />

exceptionally good with a reduction of inactive<br />

accounts. We have seen similar case studies in the<br />

USA and it shows this new wave to be an effective<br />

way of maintaining consumer satisfaction as well<br />

as increasing loyalty, transaction growth and<br />

adoption.<br />

Prediction for 2016, Sub-Sahara Africa will see<br />

more merchants accepting mobile payments<br />

due to transaction growth. We expect known<br />

international brands to start testing the waters<br />

in the African markets in various forms in the<br />

m-commerce space, and expect consumer micro<br />

payment thresholds to increase as they gain more<br />

confidence in the payment medium.<br />

MMIT, Mobile Media Info Tech, is a mobile payment processor with a mission to<br />

revolutionize the mobile payment process.<br />

006<br />

MMIT focuses on the Sub-Sahara Africa market and partners with financial institutions<br />

and international merchants to provide value added services to mobile wallet providers<br />

and users. Please visit MMIT at www.mmitonline.com.<br />

Jide Akindele, Founder,<br />

MMIT<br />

Jide is a visionary entrepreneur with a deep and wide<br />

knowledge of technologies based in the mobile money and<br />

payment transaction space. Mr. Akindele has held various<br />

directorship positions for companies in West Africa and has<br />

worked in USA, Nigeria and the UK since 2007.


eCommerce<br />

Africa Confex<br />

WATCH OUR VIDEO<br />

commerce<br />

Africa<br />

Follow @eCommerceConfex and @KineticEventsSA on<br />

Twitter for daily updates and news feeds.<br />

Advisory Panel<br />

RAPHAEL AFAEDOR<br />

EMILIAN POPA<br />

VINNY LINGHAM<br />

17 & 18 FEBRUARY 2016 | THE CTICC, CAPE TOWN<br />

WWW.ECOMMERCE-AFRICA.COM<br />

JOE OKLEBERRY<br />

SIMDUL SHAGAYA<br />

CAREN GENTHNER-KAPPESZ<br />

Sponsors,Exhibitors & Partners<br />

DiGAME<br />

Co-Founder, Jumia/CEO &<br />

Co-Founder, Supermart<br />

Principle, Digital Growth<br />

Africa & Middle East<br />

Co-Founder and CEO,<br />

Gyft<br />

Internet Strategist,<br />

Naspers<br />

Founder and CEO,<br />

Konga Online Shopping<br />

CEO,<br />

MIH/ Naspers<br />

An award winning and<br />

celebrated businessman in<br />

Africa, Raphael heads up the<br />

biggest online retail platform<br />

in Nigeria, Supermart and has<br />

taken the African business<br />

scene by storm. His previous<br />

work with one of the biggest<br />

online companies, Jumnia,<br />

launched him to success, and<br />

cultivated his passion for Africa<br />

and its development.<br />

Emilian’s passion for<br />

eCommerce and online<br />

trends shines through when<br />

he speaks. He describes<br />

himself as an eCommerce<br />

and global entrepreneur and<br />

has headed up some of the<br />

biggest companies in South<br />

Africa, as well as the rest of<br />

the world including Rocket<br />

Internet, Groupon and Zando<br />

among others. He is currently<br />

living between South Africa<br />

and the Middle East with his<br />

investment initiatives.<br />

Most will instantly recognise<br />

Vinny straight from the small<br />

screen and his position on<br />

South Africa’s Dragons Den,<br />

and others will know him<br />

as the co-founder of some<br />

of the biggest initiatives in<br />

online tech in South Africa:<br />

Clicks2Customers, Gyft and<br />

Silicon Cape Initiative. He<br />

has since moved to the actual<br />

Silcon Valley and is rubbing<br />

shoulders with big names<br />

like Richard Branson among<br />

others.<br />

It has been said that anything<br />

that this man shares will be<br />

deep and thought provoking.<br />

Joe used to be Mary Meeker’s<br />

right hand man, and was part<br />

of the team that took LinkedIn<br />

and MailRu public. Described<br />

as the most experienced man<br />

in internet in Africa, his skills<br />

and expertise are in high<br />

demand and he was pounced<br />

on by Naspers to hold a<br />

position here in Cape Town.<br />

Sim is the Founder and<br />

Executive Chairman of<br />

DealDey Limited. He has over<br />

13 years experience in New<br />

Media & Investment Banking<br />

and worked with leaders such<br />

as MicroStrategy, Lucent<br />

Technologies and Real<br />

Networks. Sim also served<br />

as the Africa lead for Google.<br />

He graduated from George<br />

Washington University,<br />

Dartmouth College & holds an<br />

MBA from Harvard Business<br />

School.<br />

Former CEO of Kalahari.<br />

com, Caren was relocated<br />

to Cape Town from Berlin,<br />

with prior roles including<br />

a nine year stint at eBay<br />

as general manager for<br />

shopping.com Germany, and<br />

as a director and GM for eBay<br />

Express Germany. Caren<br />

has also worked as COO<br />

at brands4friends, an eBay<br />

subsidiary in Germany.<br />

The eCommerce Africa Confex gathers 1500+ Exhibition Visitors, 70+ Sponsors & Exhibitors, 500+ Conference<br />

Delegates and 90+ Guest speakers.<br />

Connecting the regions’ leading merchants; major retailers; brands; developers; designers and eCommerce<br />

experts, the summit is focused on exchanging inspired and innovative ideas, discussing emerging trends and<br />

making lasting connections.<br />

Organisers, Kinetic, have secured some of the best global solution providers who are ready to provide the African<br />

continent with great products and services at the most exclusive and by far the largest Commerce gathering on<br />

the African continent.<br />

To get involved with the show, fast track your sales or even network with industry leaders;<br />

Click here to get your free expo pass OR Register for a full delegate pass at 15% discount.<br />

For general enquiries and/or information about sponsorship, contact marcia@kineticevents.net<br />

007


Infographic description<br />

Global investment in financial technology continues to increase exponentially, confirming that<br />

“fintech” is on the rise. While the majority of funding has been dolled out to North America<br />

and Europe, the most unmet need for innovative digital financial services lies in emerging<br />

markets. The bottom of the pyramind (BoP) in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to<br />

traditional financial services, making consumers more open to new technologies. Many fairweather<br />

investors are reticent to engage entrepreneurs targeting the poorest members of<br />

the population, which in turn, creates more value for those who do invest. Beyond the BoP,<br />

Africa’s economic growth, increasing middle-class and Internet penetration makes her a worthy<br />

candidate for investment. Contrary to the prevailing opportunity, less than 1% of private equity<br />

and venture capital funding went to Africa in 2015.<br />

To learn more about opportunities for investing in African fintech,<br />

please visit www.mondato.com<br />

About mondato<br />

Mondato is a boutique consultancy specializing in the provision of strategic,<br />

commercial and operational support across the mobile finance and commerce<br />

(MFC) ecosystem. Established in 2008 on a foundation of years of experience in the<br />

telecommunications, technology and financial sectors, Mondato possesses a unique<br />

009


By Aung Kyaw Moe<br />

Dezember 29, 2015<br />

Southeast Asia’s $34.5 billion e-commerce future<br />

A<br />

rose by any other name,<br />

according to Shakespeare,<br />

would smell as sweet. And<br />

whether the ten-member<br />

cluster of nations surrounded by<br />

economic powerhouses Australia,<br />

China and India goes by the Association<br />

of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),<br />

or simply as Southeast Asia (SEA),<br />

the region’s star is set to shine.<br />

Comprising ten member nations (Brunei,<br />

Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,<br />

Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore,<br />

Thailand and Vietnam), ASEAN looks<br />

to become an economic powerhouse<br />

in its own right. It is home to around<br />

625 million people, 744 million mobile<br />

devices, nearly 200 million Internet<br />

users and a GDP of over US$2.6 trillion.<br />

It will also boast a 400 million-strong<br />

middle class by 2020 (Nielsen).<br />

Amid the backdrop of political rhetoric<br />

transforming into economic reality,<br />

McKinsey attributes ASEAN’s rise to<br />

three powerful socio-economic trends<br />

does it check out?<br />

– rapid economic growth, urbanization<br />

and technology adoption (notably<br />

Internet penetration and mobile<br />

technologies). Moreover, with the<br />

wheels in motion for a unified ASEAN<br />

Economic Community (AEC) - set to<br />

come into force as early as end-2015 –<br />

the region has embarked on perhaps its<br />

most exciting phase of integration and<br />

cross border trade in the association’s<br />

48 year history. Together these factors<br />

are transforming the region, its people<br />

and its economies, with e-commerce<br />

and m-commerce leading the way.<br />

Building momentum in a fragmented<br />

region<br />

With rising online connectivity, with<br />

improvements in financial, logistical,<br />

security and alternative payment<br />

infrastructures, with more and more<br />

e-commerce M&As and with the AEC<br />

kicking in, ASEAN is ripe with potential.<br />

Frost & Sullivan estimates the B2C<br />

e-commerce compound annual growth<br />

rate (CAGR) of Indonesia, Malaysia,<br />

Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and<br />

Vietnam at 37.6 percent from 2013<br />

to 2018, growing from US$7 billion to<br />

US$34.5 billion – a number that would<br />

be even higher if we were to include the<br />

remaining five member states.<br />

ASEAN holds such promise for<br />

governments, businesses and<br />

investors for a number of reasons:<br />

Online connectivity<br />

Southeast Asia comprises 744<br />

million internet connections, with 119<br />

mobile subscriptions per 100 people<br />

(WeAreSocial, 2015). It already accounts<br />

for 7% of global internet users, catching<br />

up to Western Europe (12%) and the US<br />

(11%). Internet penetration has risen<br />

414% in Cambodia, 346% in Myanmar,<br />

47% in Thailand – year-on-year – in<br />

FY2014. The average person in the<br />

Philippines spends 6.3 hours a day<br />

online, in Thailand 5.5 hours, in Vietnam<br />

5.2 hours, in Indonesia 5.1 hours and in<br />

Singapore 4.7 hours. These are ahead of<br />

China’s 3.9 hours, South Korea’s 3.4 hours<br />

and Japan’s 3.1 hours. The proliferation<br />

010


of tablets, phablets, smartphones and<br />

3G – even 4G – services will play a role<br />

in further driving internet penetration<br />

rates, as technological advances<br />

continue to make devices affordable<br />

even to the less-affluent, key to enabling<br />

the region’s e-commerce future.<br />

Financial infrastructure<br />

What’s remarkable about the 2014<br />

US$7 billion estimate of ASEAN’s B2C<br />

e-commerce is that it has achieved this<br />

despite a financial infrastructure that<br />

has a lot more potential – and need –<br />

to grow. An estimated 70 percent of<br />

SEA residents lack access to traditional<br />

banking services (McKinsey). Moreover,<br />

with credit card penetration in some<br />

markets below 5 percent, e-commerce<br />

in ASEAN is understandably<br />

underdeveloped. Consequentially,<br />

SEA online retail accounts for around<br />

1 percent to 2 percent of total retail<br />

sales, compared to China, at 11 percent<br />

(FT Confidential Research). However<br />

this figure for China was, as recently as<br />

2010, 2.5 percent – a growth trajectory<br />

many anticipate SEA will follow in the<br />

coming years, against this backdrop of<br />

rapidly evolving financial infrastructure.<br />

Logistical infrastructure<br />

Logistics and ecommerce have so far<br />

proven to sometimes be a mismatch for<br />

Southeast Asian shoppers, as only a small<br />

proportion receive free delivery. This<br />

means shoppers are incurring logistical<br />

costs that retailers would usually, in a<br />

competitive market, help to absorb.<br />

Southeast Asia’s landscape poses a<br />

unique set of challenges that is slowing<br />

the momentum e-commerce should<br />

be seeing. These include late delivery,<br />

damaged or lost packages, the prevailing<br />

practise of cash-on delivery, lengthy<br />

return procedures, and a lack of special<br />

services such as trial or installation –<br />

particularly when given the geographical<br />

barrier between buyer and seller.<br />

In response, firms can either build<br />

their logistics systems, or partner with<br />

logistics companies. China’s Alibaba has,<br />

for example, acquired a 14.51% stake<br />

in Singapore Post, which will spend<br />

US$145 million on building a regional<br />

ecommerce hub. Alibaba’s ecommerce<br />

site AliExpress is seeing tremendous<br />

growth across the region. Meanwhile<br />

Uber has partnered LBC Express in<br />

the Philippines to deliver Christmas<br />

presents on-demand. And that’s the<br />

role private and public sector actors with<br />

deeper pockets play – the ‘uberfication’<br />

of the region’s under-developed<br />

logistical sector, in turn building<br />

intra and cross-border commerce.<br />

Transaction Security<br />

Rapid progress has been made in the<br />

domain of payment infrastructure and<br />

online security. Consumers are, however,<br />

put off from buying online – the Financial<br />

Times recently estimated that 90 per<br />

cent of visits to ecommerce sites do<br />

not result in sales. Part of the reason is<br />

because e-retailers are bound by Caveat<br />

Venditor, where governments impose<br />

strict regulations to hamper illegal<br />

money laundering operations across<br />

borders, indirectly turning off shoppers,<br />

who are required to provide credit card<br />

information to transact. Consequentially,<br />

AT Kearney estimates that 67% of<br />

digital buyers in the Philippines, 62%<br />

in Thailand, 60% in Indonesia, 55% in<br />

Vietnam, 52% in Malaysia do not trust<br />

giving their card information online –<br />

compared to the global average of 49%.<br />

While this can be overcome as<br />

governments promote non-cash<br />

transactions and coordinated<br />

e-payment regulations, security<br />

laws needs to catch up with what’s<br />

commonplace in developed markets.<br />

ASEAN countries are responding,<br />

developing and enforcing security laws<br />

and regulations for ecommerce data<br />

protection and electronic transactions.<br />

Singapore’s Monetary Authority of<br />

Singapore (MAS) has, for example,<br />

made the 2-factor authentication (2Fa)<br />

process mandatory for any transaction,<br />

local or overseas. The movement<br />

towards intra-regional coordination of<br />

shared cybersecurity, best practices,<br />

and legislative frameworks will allay<br />

these fears, boosting ecommerce.<br />

Alternative Payments<br />

E-commerce requires a healthy and<br />

robust payments infrastructure,<br />

together with integrated innovations,<br />

to overcome deficiencies in a region<br />

underserved by traditional banking. In<br />

SEA, where well over 400 million people<br />

are unbanked, compounded by existing<br />

security concerns among digital buyers,<br />

alternative payment solutions are rising<br />

in importance, building the robustness of<br />

the payments infrastructure. They are a<br />

necessary option for businesses to reach<br />

out to un-banked customers, through<br />

new ways to complete transactions<br />

via ATMs, online banking and over the<br />

counter payments. Alternative payment<br />

solutions will also play a facilitating role<br />

in converting unbanked to banked users.<br />

Rise in M&As<br />

Southeast Asia is already drawing<br />

global e-commerce players, including<br />

Germany’s Rocket Internet, with<br />

investments in online marketplace<br />

Lazada along with online fashion retailer<br />

Zalora, Japan’s Rakuten, Softbank, and<br />

China’s Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent.<br />

The pace of e-commerce and payment<br />

innovation in Southeast Asia is certain<br />

to accelerate. Rising investments are<br />

expected over the next few months,<br />

developing the region’s e-commerce<br />

through investment, acquisition<br />

and subsequent consolidation.<br />

Advent of AEC<br />

The word “fragmented” is used<br />

consistently by economists,<br />

politicians and business visionaries<br />

alike to characterize ASEAN – not<br />

without reason. With ten countries,<br />

ten languages, ten currencies and<br />

economies with varying (often too high)<br />

levels of economic nationalism, ASEAN is<br />

indeed made up of ten very unique parts.<br />

Some are highly developed – Singapore,<br />

for example, has a 2014 per capita GDP<br />

of $60,410 (IMF), while Myanmar’s was<br />

$1,405. Singapore presents one of the<br />

most friendly business environments<br />

in the world, whereas Myanmar was,<br />

as recently as 2013, twinned with<br />

Sudan in an article by The Economist.<br />

For AEC to hold any meaning, even in<br />

less erudite circles, it would need to<br />

address the notion of piecing some of<br />

these fragments together, by opening<br />

up cross-border trade. And then, there’s<br />

the bigger context – where ASEAN fits<br />

in the broader Asia-Pacific narrative.<br />

011


Love thy neighbour<br />

ASEAN’s awakening lies not only in more<br />

efficient and transparent intra-regional<br />

trade, but also in doing business with its<br />

neighbours, particularly China.<br />

That’s the biggest challenge, and even<br />

greater opportunity, one which is<br />

particularly attributable to e-commerce.<br />

China’s trade with ASEAN is estimated<br />

at US$224.38 billion in H1 2015, up<br />

1.6% year-on-year. More crucially, since<br />

2010, over sixty percent of its outbound<br />

investment has been into ASEAN, with<br />

internet and e-commerce cited as key<br />

areas of interest.<br />

With better infrastructure, and with<br />

trade efficiencies, e-commerce has the<br />

potential to drive the 21st century’s<br />

rendition of the Maritime Silk Road.<br />

ASEAN’s future is bright!<br />

by Aung Kyaw Moe<br />

Founder and Group CEO , 2C2P<br />

Aung is the founder and Group CEO of 2C2P, a Southeast Asian<br />

payment services company revolutionizing payments for financial<br />

institutions, ecommerce and mcommerce merchants and consumers<br />

across Southeast Asia. He hails from Myanmar, but has been based<br />

in Singapore and Thailand for the past fifteen years.<br />

About 2C2P<br />

2C2P (Cash and Card Payment Processor) is a leading Southeast Asian comprehensive payment services<br />

provider, transforming millions of everyday payments across Asia. The company offers a number of services<br />

tailored for the needs of ecommerce and mcommerce merchants, banks and financial institutions of any size.<br />

012


By Mark Taylor<br />

Dezember 24, 2015<br />

© pixabay<br />

Forget Uber Moments, Are We Witnessing A Napster Moment?<br />

A popular analogy bouncing around financial services is<br />

how the emergence of blockchain technology is similar<br />

to the invention of the internet and how that disrupted,<br />

well, everything.<br />

Off the top of my head; executives at Barclays; the founder<br />

of Ripple, Chris Larsen; the managing director of R3, Charley<br />

Cooper, who currently has 43 banks working together; and<br />

Goldman Sachs have all made the comparison.<br />

This fantastic new-fangled system will not only improve<br />

efficiency and settlement times it will revolutionise crossborder<br />

payments and save banks $20bn a year (or so Banco<br />

Santander claims). We are led to believe this is the dawn of a<br />

golden age for financial services and the possibilities are so<br />

great that our minds cannot yet fathom how transformative it<br />

will be. Of course, the beauty of the internet was that no-one<br />

saw it coming, no-one could control it, and it has grown into<br />

something almost beyond definition.<br />

And so the news that R3’s unquestionably bold mission to<br />

create a standard in blockchain that all, banks, insurance,<br />

trading houses, stock exchanges, can share, while admirable,<br />

should be viewed with some caution. With 42 banks now on<br />

board, it will be interesting to see how the group delivers<br />

whether too big to succeed or indeed too big to fail, either way<br />

it is too big to ignore. There have already been cries of “cartel”,<br />

from the likes of the ex-Visa forex figurehead Jon Matonis, a<br />

Bitcoin Foundation founding member now busying himself in<br />

the private sector.<br />

After all, what could possibly go wrong with banks colluding<br />

and sending soothing messages to regulators that “everything<br />

is fine, and the great thing is blockchain can actually HELP<br />

enforcement agencies do their jobs better”?<br />

Cynicism aside, the sweeping Death Staresque nature of R3’s<br />

unprecedented and justifiably attention-grabbing partnership<br />

has overshadowed some interesting, smaller use cases. Bank<br />

ledger protocol developer Ripple is not throwing all its eggs<br />

in one “blockchain can save the world” basket, and neither is<br />

PayPal nor rapidly expanding cross-border payment group<br />

Earthport. All have acknowledged the potential but are<br />

positioning themselves to be interoperable, knowing that being<br />

connected to the ledger, having it as an option for them or<br />

their clients, is better than being entirely reliant on the ledger.<br />

It is likely to be the smaller, more nimble companies who can<br />

affect real change while we all wait agog for the big moment<br />

when the banks cut the ribbon on their sparkling new back<br />

ends (which should be sometime around 2026 according to<br />

the World Economic Forum).<br />

It is likely that the payments industry will adapt slowly,<br />

incrementally. We are evolving at a rate of knots, and the last<br />

24 months have been a rollercoaster, but this was already<br />

a sector already at the forefront of innovation, not some<br />

slumbering giant about to get a rude shock. Look for the<br />

suppliers to insurance, capital markets and stock trading for<br />

the initial use cases.<br />

Financial auditors, heavily reliant on their model of scrutinising<br />

the inner workings of financial institutions, would quickly be<br />

out of a job should blockchain come to fruition and usurp<br />

the need for this trusted service. It is no surprise that<br />

PricewaterhouseCooper and Deloitte for two have built their<br />

own blockchain labs and are testing a series of use cases.<br />

And what of poor old Bitcoin?<br />

The forgotten element in all of this is the crypto-currency<br />

which has its own ledger, the Bitcoin blockchain, was cast<br />

aside in 2015. Advocates (like Coinbase) believe the world will<br />

013


eventually gravitate back towards the Bitcoin blockchain once<br />

the banks finish testing and realise they cannot possibly match<br />

the computing power of an open, global network.<br />

Given that Christmas has passed, let’s try a seasonal analogy.<br />

You have picked out a wonderful gift (Bitcoin) for a small child<br />

(the banks), something new and sparkly that you are convinced<br />

they will enjoy as it enhances their life and that of their friends.<br />

However upon opening it the child throws ignores the gift<br />

completely and starts playing with the box it came inside<br />

(blockchain). The reality is more likely somewhere in between.<br />

Perhaps the final analogy for us is less the Internet, and<br />

more Napster, and what that did to the music industry. The<br />

humble file-sharing site brought major record labels and<br />

conglomerates to their knees, completely altering how we the<br />

consumer accessed and bought (or didn’t buy) music.<br />

Mark Taylor<br />

Senior Journalist for<br />

PaymentsCompliance<br />

Mark’s regulatory coverage of the<br />

payments industry touches on<br />

a wide variety of subjects from<br />

cryptocurrency, international<br />

sanctions and anti-money<br />

laundering laws to innovation<br />

The shockwaves reverberated far beyond the tired music world,<br />

and now a generation has matured, file-sharing and streaming<br />

are slowly being monetised, but not without casualties (HMV<br />

being one). There is perhaps is an element of “that could be<br />

us” from a nervous, insular banking community traditionally<br />

fearful of change and of new technology. Crashed cash<br />

machines in the UK often greet bemused customers with the<br />

sight of Windows XP re-booting, hardly a cutting edge process<br />

or a reassuring sight (Microsoft stopped updating XP some<br />

time ago). Are the banks looking at Bitcoin and deciding they<br />

don’t want a Napster moment, and are buying into blockchain<br />

without fully understanding it, or what it can do? Only time<br />

will tell.<br />

About PaymentsCompliance<br />

PaymentsCompliance is part of ComplianceOnline. ComplianceOnline is the leading provider of business<br />

intelligence for the gambling, payments and blockchain industries. We specialise in providing high<br />

level and independent news, analysis, data, eLearning and research through our primary services<br />

GamblingCompliance, PaymentsCompliance and BlockchainBriefing. Request your free 14-day trial at www.<br />

014


A Roadmap to<br />

omnichannel<br />

payments<br />

Juspal Manic is the Director of Specialist Services<br />

function for the International Services segment<br />

of TSYS, a leading global payments provider,<br />

focused on enabling clients to optimise their<br />

payments technology. Juspal has more than 14<br />

years’ experience in the payments space and has<br />

worked across multiple geographies in various<br />

technology roles across the payments value chain.<br />

Juspal Manic<br />

Director of Specialist<br />

Services at TSYS<br />

International<br />

What is omni-channel?<br />

Put simply, Omni-channel as a concept is<br />

a seamless experience for the customer<br />

through a sales process or a process<br />

in terms of making a transaction or<br />

engagement, which could involve mobile,<br />

web and or physical channels.<br />

Omni-channel tries to force an<br />

organization into having a seamless<br />

approach. When you look at the origins of<br />

that concept it dates back to the 2000s.<br />

When mobile devices like smartphones<br />

occurred a lot of retailers were in a<br />

price war situation. At that point, certain<br />

retailers realized that they can’t compete<br />

for price, so what they wanted to do was<br />

change the shopping experience. That’s<br />

why it became more about changing the<br />

experience of the customer and thus,<br />

becoming customer centric. Therefore,<br />

the increasing usage of smartphones<br />

has driven the omni-channel approach.<br />

Obviously you also have the rise of apps<br />

within the smartphone ecosystem and<br />

then you also have the fact that we’re<br />

more connected nowadays. Overall the<br />

customer is the focal point of omnichannel,<br />

with the customer driving the<br />

journey forward in terms of engagement.<br />

It’s also about collaboration because<br />

it forces an organization to pay more<br />

attention to collaboration. In this context<br />

it’s no longer just about physical stores<br />

vs. the digitization, they have to work<br />

together now.<br />

To sum up, the omni-channel concept<br />

is about the seamless integration of all<br />

customer touch points. Looking at the<br />

trends and where this development all<br />

came from, the retail industry gathered<br />

the most momentum for the omnichannel<br />

approach over the last five<br />

years. Since retailers had physical stores<br />

but also digital footprints, they wanted<br />

to merge those together.They were the<br />

forerunners and early proponents of<br />

this concept. After that, a lot of service<br />

providers / IT providers came into play,<br />

but if you think about the next evolution,<br />

there are other industries who have<br />

realized its potential.<br />

For example, it’s no surprise that in<br />

the automobile industry there is a lot<br />

of work going on espacially in the car’s<br />

dashboard landscape about who is<br />

going to be the focal point in your car<br />

(when you get in your car). You have<br />

Google, Microsoft and Apple doing a<br />

lot of investment in this area with the<br />

objective of providing a single ecosystem<br />

with your connected devices. You can<br />

also take wearables as an example, and<br />

now you have the health factor kicking<br />

in. All these industries are getting<br />

bolder in the space because they see<br />

an opportunity to be more connected<br />

with the customer. What is more, you<br />

are going to see great integration of<br />

the omni-channel concept. No longer<br />

will you just have companies looking<br />

at themselves. They’ll look at partners<br />

and vendors that can contribute to make<br />

the customer experience richer. They’ll<br />

also seek strategic alliances with other<br />

vendors or other channels to see if they<br />

can integrate these even more into their<br />

offering. That’s why the trend in retail<br />

very likely kicked that off more than<br />

anybody else, positioning them ahead<br />

of the curve.<br />

When looking at the whole value chain,<br />

there are startups coming in that are<br />

challenging the traditional value chain.<br />

So you have the payments value chain<br />

in which a lot of startup companies<br />

are emerging. These companies want<br />

a chunk of the pre-purchase to postpurchase<br />

market share. Thinking about<br />

all these value chains being disrupted<br />

and then factoring in the influence of<br />

social media, companies have to provide<br />

a seamless experience because it’s<br />

015


not only about the product or service<br />

anymore.<br />

If I had to summarize it in very simple<br />

terms, there are a couple of things I<br />

would focus on. There is a piece around<br />

social media, which is going to upsurge<br />

a challenge on the omni-channel piece.<br />

Another piece pertains to the payments<br />

piece. With mobile wallet and other<br />

means of payments, the acceptance<br />

piece is fundamental. It needs to be<br />

secure, it has to provide high acceptance<br />

level and you need to make sure it’s<br />

frictionless. No more of this two factor<br />

or three factor authentication, that<br />

landscape will change. So when you go<br />

to purchase, all that happens will be<br />

so seamless that perhaps you go back<br />

to your device, you do your biometric<br />

and it’s done. No additional passwords<br />

needed.<br />

There is a non-profit organization called<br />

Fido. It’s about fast identity online.<br />

Effectively you’ve got a lot of the big<br />

players involved, such as Microsoft,<br />

Visa, and Netflix. This organisation is<br />

trying to create a standard for online<br />

authentication. In fact, they are trying<br />

to establish a standard for the removal<br />

of passwords and authentification via<br />

additional means (devices). And then<br />

you think about the connecting piece.<br />

It’ll push the landscape to be a slicker<br />

and more frictionless process.<br />

The loyalty piece also embodies a<br />

challenge for merchants and providers.<br />

For me the biggest part of all of this is<br />

with you being connected, and omnichannel<br />

being effective in the digital<br />

ecosystem, is about real time analytics.<br />

That is what the game changer is. The<br />

reason I’m saying this is if you look at<br />

payments, the analytics is normally on<br />

the fraud —post transactions on the use<br />

of pre transaction in terms of the piece of<br />

authenticating the card holder. However,<br />

now it’s about changing the cardholder’s<br />

behavior to make a purchase.<br />

What kind of organizations are going to<br />

be challenged with this? Some have a<br />

better position to cope with this than<br />

others. A good example is Amazon; they<br />

are fantastic when it comes to analytics.<br />

They have the ability to not only do real<br />

time behavior analytics, but to push<br />

products which they think either you<br />

as a demographic would be interested<br />

in, or you as a customer buying that<br />

product would be interested in.<br />

Today the trends in omni-channel are<br />

around social media, agile supply chains<br />

and frictionless payments. There is<br />

going to be great integration of partners<br />

and alliances, it’s always about being<br />

connected and it’s about the analytics.<br />

That is the front end.<br />

If you look at back end for organizations,<br />

they have to collaborate. The<br />

fundamental element is collaboration.<br />

Internal organizations are not about<br />

bricks and mortar against the digital side<br />

of the business. It’s one single system<br />

now. You have to remove the barriers.<br />

You have to work together. You can also<br />

over-collaborate, which can have the<br />

reverse effect so you need to get the<br />

balance.<br />

How is the new Internet of Things<br />

concept influencing the way people<br />

work with omni-channel and its<br />

strategy development?<br />

When you think about it very simplistically<br />

there is a saying ‘always on and always<br />

mobile’. That to me summarizes the IoT.<br />

Research shows that there are about<br />

13.4 billion connected devices around<br />

the world today. By 2020 it’s expected<br />

to grow to 38 billion. When thinking<br />

about the opportunity to be always on<br />

and always mobile it does open huge<br />

opportunities for engagement but also<br />

adds a huge amount of complexity. You’ll<br />

see people coming into the game who<br />

are not here today but you’ll also see the<br />

traditional players evolve and change as<br />

well.<br />

One potential new industry, which can<br />

utilize the IoT, is healthcare. You look at<br />

a person walking around with a Fitbit or<br />

you have some type of health connected<br />

device but also the Apple Watch. All<br />

those kind of things are collecting<br />

data on you. The question is what the<br />

next evolution of wearables is. At the<br />

moment they’re still at an early stage.<br />

Via wearables, you can now make a<br />

transaction. With Apple Watch you can<br />

actually make a contactless transaction<br />

via a point-of –sale device. I think that’s<br />

only the first part of the journey. The<br />

next part is going to be more interesting<br />

because you are always connected.<br />

When you walk into a store and you have<br />

your device enabled, you go walk past a<br />

piece of clothing or a product, which has<br />

a RFID or NFC connect tag on it, it will<br />

have the ability to push an offer to you<br />

in real time. If inventory is high and you<br />

have a surplus on these goods and they<br />

aren’t selling, you can put a real time<br />

offer to that customer and if they do a<br />

purchase, it supports the management<br />

of your inventory management, which<br />

can make organizations more efficient<br />

and lean. If you are a retailer and you<br />

can offer a price point there and then,<br />

which is competitive, which will make<br />

the customer react, it will likely to be<br />

beneficial to both parties. In this way<br />

your inventory management as well as<br />

your supply chain also become slicker,<br />

but the customer feels the value.<br />

If you look at where intelligent devices<br />

are: what will happen is that the<br />

layers between the customers and<br />

organization will become much thinner.<br />

Typically, when you launch a strategy,<br />

the marketing people of an organization<br />

have an idea of a concept and push it<br />

to the business guys. The business guys<br />

then verify on the marketing campaign<br />

or the proposed approach. It moves<br />

across the other departments like IT,<br />

Finance and Logistics. These guys then<br />

become enablers in making that strategy<br />

happen.<br />

This has changed, and in reality, it’s no<br />

longer only initiated by product and<br />

marketing. It’s about product, marketing,<br />

IT and the enabling functions that<br />

support the business because it has to<br />

be a collective vision not just a singular<br />

vision. You could have the best product<br />

in the world but (from an architecture<br />

perspective) if you can’t support the<br />

distribution or the channels of selling it,<br />

it’s not going to be successful. Companies<br />

have to be much more agile in their<br />

approach. A lot of banks, IT providers,<br />

IT divisions within major corporations<br />

like retail, automobile; these guys are<br />

enablers. But they traditionally follow<br />

a waterfall development life cycle.<br />

Then you have a lot of startups which<br />

come into the industry who use agile<br />

development so they’re able to deliver<br />

quicker. That’s because they don’t have<br />

the same kind robust processes in their<br />

organization.<br />

The traditional organizations when<br />

they go into omni-channel and IoT, they<br />

are going to have to be more agile. If<br />

you don’t have the agility, and strategy<br />

development you are going to suffer<br />

016


ecause other people are coming to the<br />

market much quicker than you.<br />

The fundamental premise of the,<br />

always on and always mobile mentality,<br />

is that it gives organizations access<br />

to the customer but also provides a<br />

lot more data points. It’s important<br />

since the strategy has to be built on<br />

understanding your customers. The<br />

challenge (where strategy development<br />

becomes very difficult), is how the data<br />

is central to your strategy development.<br />

With the collection of data and the<br />

huge pool you have and the investment<br />

in data scientist it’s about making the<br />

data relevant for you, your product and<br />

your value chain. If you mine the wrong<br />

data, then in fact you could move your<br />

product or the value chain in a way<br />

where you will be outcompeted in the<br />

market. It’s about the data collection, its<br />

analysis and the utilization within your<br />

strategy development. If you can do that<br />

and you can distribute your data to the<br />

certain area of the business where it’s<br />

relevant you can build a more cohesive<br />

strategy.<br />

What are the key challenges in the<br />

omni-channel strategies?<br />

You need to understand your customer<br />

before you start the journey to provide an<br />

omni-channel approach. So you need to<br />

look at your strategy when implementing<br />

an omni-channel approach to make sure<br />

it’s cross-functional, cross-channel and<br />

cross-platform. These three things<br />

are fundamental in an omni-channel<br />

strategy. However, you need to ensure<br />

that it’s also an agile strategy and it can<br />

be executed upon. Otherwise you’re<br />

going to be behind the market. It also<br />

goes down to the integration of not<br />

just your own services but third party<br />

services.<br />

So the market is going to a state where<br />

companies are willing to work more with<br />

third parties and strategic partners or<br />

vendors. What they’re asking for is the<br />

ease of integration. APIs or headless<br />

APIs need to be integrated in a seamless<br />

way by making them very non- complex,<br />

because if they are not, the problem<br />

is that you become very hard to work<br />

with. Then in fact, you might loose<br />

your opportunities because the omnichannel<br />

concept as well as the IoT is<br />

about connectivity. It’s about ease of<br />

integration. Speed to market and ease<br />

of integration are key factors as well as<br />

the enablement of third parties. With<br />

all these factors to take into account,<br />

you make your own environment more<br />

complex and that’s where collaboration<br />

comes in.<br />

If internally you’re not aligned to<br />

collaborate, and externally you are<br />

a difficult partner to work with, then<br />

your chances of finding opportunities<br />

to collaborate will be limited. In simple<br />

terms, if your execution is slow and poor<br />

you will start finding pressure within<br />

your business, which you then have to<br />

outsource or diversify further.<br />

The barriers of entry in payments at<br />

the moment is low because companies<br />

are entering the value chain and<br />

causing disruption easily because they<br />

only focus on a specific element . The<br />

question is when the regulators start to<br />

become much more aggressive on the<br />

end to end value chain. At the moment<br />

it focuses on the core piece, which is<br />

making the transaction securely and<br />

treating the customers fairly with their<br />

data protected.<br />

An omni-channel strategy allows you to<br />

manage the customer journey. However,<br />

if you don’t manage the customer<br />

channel, somebody else will do that for<br />

you.<br />

What makes omni-channel payments<br />

special and why?<br />

I think even if you can have the best<br />

product or service in the world, but have<br />

the most cumbersome and disjointed<br />

way to make a payment, or the lack of a<br />

seamless experience on your payment,<br />

you won’t succeed. Customers will be<br />

turned off and go elsewhere. That’s<br />

the beauty; they have the choice to<br />

go elsewhere. The element that links<br />

the customer with all these things is<br />

payments. That’s one of the unique<br />

identifier. In the past customers were<br />

unwilling to give their details. However,<br />

if there is a benefit for them then they<br />

are happy to give you that information.<br />

Apple Pay has come into the market and<br />

changed the dynamic by authenticating<br />

using your biometric and NFC. PayPal<br />

can be mentioned as innovators in<br />

this context. Their strategy is to open<br />

themselves up from an API perspective<br />

so that they can easily integrate into<br />

what ever the payment vehicle is.<br />

Amazon Payments is trying the same,<br />

moving into that space. Their advantage<br />

is that they have a large footprint, they<br />

possess diversity in terms of their stalls,<br />

and they could challenge the payments<br />

landscape when implementing payment<br />

authentication with their own Amazon<br />

authentication approach, i.e., just using<br />

your Amazon credentials.<br />

An omni-channel strategy enables you<br />

to collect more data points than just<br />

on the card payment / transaction.<br />

Consequently, you will be able to control<br />

and manage the customer journey and<br />

experience more effectively. The reason<br />

that payments are so valued in omnichannel<br />

is that when considering micro<br />

services and APIs you can now easily<br />

integrate with partners. Hence, you<br />

can have a better loyalty and reward<br />

program, whereas in the past they were<br />

separate services.<br />

What is the future outlook for<br />

omni-channel?<br />

It’s about building micro services,<br />

which are available to integrate, very<br />

simple but at the same time secure and<br />

reliable. Being cross-channel is also a<br />

fundamental factor. Wearables will have<br />

a significant impact on omni-channel<br />

in the future too. They will get more<br />

intelligent, more sophisticated and add<br />

many more functions like GPS. On top<br />

of that, many other industries will come<br />

into the market, including automobile,<br />

utilities and healthcare.<br />

On the marketing side, there are the real<br />

time analytics, which will help companies<br />

to obtain better insight into the customer<br />

and push more relevant products and<br />

services based on the gathered data.<br />

Another aspect that organizations<br />

have to pay attention to in the future<br />

is payments. Ease of integration will be<br />

required, high acceptance as well as<br />

security. The last factor I find most vital<br />

for the future is the agility of the logistics<br />

and the supply chain to cope with the<br />

demand.<br />

017


Infographic description<br />

With this infographic, we wanted to highlight a significant growth in mobile phone usage, as it<br />

has become a conduit for payment solutions worldwide, and leading this trend are users from<br />

emerging countries.<br />

The top five receiving countries, for money transfer and family remittance, are China, Philippines,<br />

Mexico, India, and Nigeria. These countries have contributed to the big impact in the market’s<br />

numbers. Because the remittance market in the developing countries is among the most<br />

expensive in the world, the mobile wallet industry has opted to become one of the most<br />

advanced, with mobile phones penetration at an all-time high.<br />

As a result of this trend, we have been able to observed a substantial growth in usage of mobile<br />

phones, due to the growth of the mobile payment service, the actual number of mobile phone<br />

owners, and the money spent in mobile apps and browsers.<br />

About Paytoo<br />

PAYTOO is a brand of PAYTOO Corp., a US Corporation founded in 1999. Since then,<br />

PAYTOO has expanded its line of products and launched in 2009 the first mobile<br />

solution to combine telecommunications and payments into one single account, the<br />

PAYTOO Mobile Wallet. This unique mobile wallet offers not only an alternative to a<br />

bank account, but also a complete range of financial services such as direct deposit,<br />

money transfer, gift cards, bill payment, cell phone top ups, prepaid and virtual<br />

MasterCard, paying a merchant, and its two newer products, the cardless ATM and the<br />

multi-service profit center kiosk.<br />

019


Spotlight<br />

Think you have what it takes to start a business in<br />

a super-hot market?<br />

<strong>PCM</strong> takes a close look at some of the most<br />

innovative and promising startup companies in the<br />

payment industry.<br />

Using Your


“IT’S NOT JUST<br />

ABOUT SENDING<br />

MONEY, IT’S<br />

ABOUT BEING A<br />

TRUE FINANCE<br />

PLATFORM”<br />

A<br />

recent study shows found that<br />

Southeast Asia has a large<br />

inbound remittance market<br />

that was worth US$56.8 billion<br />

in 2014. However, there are many<br />

inefficiencies in the remittance market.<br />

One of those problems is the way money<br />

is sent by overseas workers.<br />

We speak with Aaron Siwoku, founder<br />

and CEO of Toast, a startup using<br />

blockchain technology to provide a fast<br />

and cheap alternative to traditional<br />

money senders.<br />

Where did your idea for Toast<br />

originate?<br />

So, basically we started off developing a<br />

digital currency platform, CRYPTOSIGMA.<br />

We decided that the real problem we<br />

are trying to solve is not making it more<br />

easy to buy and sell but we wanted to<br />

actually create a more efficient finance<br />

platform. When we started thinking<br />

about that, simultaneously we also came<br />

across something that’s a big problem<br />

here in Singapore and it’s replicated<br />

in Hong Kong and numerous other<br />

cities across the world, especially in the<br />

United Arab Emirates. We saw domestic<br />

helpers and migrant workers, queueing<br />

up at Western Union to send money<br />

and the queues would be down the<br />

Aaron Siwoku, founder & CEO, Toast<br />

street. One thing that struck me about<br />

this queue was that everybody had a<br />

smartphone, with 3G data connection<br />

and was chatting on Viber and checking<br />

Facebook. Then I thought, there must<br />

be an easier way to send money, rather<br />

than queueing up and handing physical<br />

cash over counter.<br />

So, there is a couple of problems to solve<br />

there. The problem that a lot of people<br />

think is relevant is the moving of money<br />

from one place to another - but this is<br />

actually the easiest part of the equation.<br />

The most difficult part of the equation is;<br />

how do you get money from somebody<br />

who doesn’t have a bank account? How<br />

do you get that money into a digital<br />

application and represent it as a digital<br />

balance in an eWallet and do the KYC<br />

and AML checks?<br />

What we decided to do is to change<br />

the name of the platform from<br />

CRYPTOSIGMA to TOAST, because we<br />

felt that sending money should be as<br />

easy as it is to make a piece of toast<br />

and we really wanted to simplify the<br />

remittance experience. We felt that<br />

was a great place for us to start and get<br />

our foot in the door, but as the money<br />

remittances’ business is not terribly<br />

profitable, we knew that this was only<br />

the initial problem we wanted to solve<br />

and eventually (the aim is) to look more<br />

like a digital Bank.<br />

There are lots of good examples of<br />

digital Banks in the UK and Europe but<br />

not in Asia. So, we really felt there was an<br />

opportunity to become a digital bank in<br />

Asia, starting with remittance because it<br />

is a very relevant problem that affects a<br />

wide demographic of people that starts<br />

with migrant workers but goes all the<br />

way up the chain to white collar workers<br />

and even businesses. So we thought that<br />

we can make it efficient to send money<br />

and make the user experience simpler.<br />

What is your core product or service<br />

and what makes it different?<br />

One of the things we are planning to<br />

launch in Q2 is Direct Bill Payment,<br />

because the second biggest problem<br />

after queueing up to send cash back<br />

is the fact that when you actually get<br />

to the front of the queue to send that<br />

cash wherever you want to send it, often<br />

you are sending it to a (now) estranged<br />

fiancé, partner, husband/wife who is<br />

looking after children. Perhaps you’ve<br />

been away for two or three years<br />

working as a maid in Singapore or Hong<br />

Kong and you are now seeing somebody<br />

else, the recipient person is also seeing<br />

somebody else and the money that you<br />

send actually doesn’t all make it to where<br />

it is supposed to go.<br />

021


So, we are now in Q1, setting up Direct<br />

Bill Payment, which means that using<br />

TOAST in Singapore and Hong Kong a<br />

Filipino migrant worker will be able to<br />

do to bill payments over 390 different<br />

providers in the Philippines - that’s<br />

everything from government, utilities, to<br />

insurance, healthcare, loans, education,<br />

etc.<br />

From there we feel going forward into<br />

the future we can hopefully then do<br />

advanced pay day loans, interest on<br />

fixed deposits and then we can start to<br />

look very much like a digital bank. So,<br />

we just see money transfer and being<br />

a mediator as a way to build a finance<br />

platform that people rely on, trust, and<br />

does the things that people want it to do.<br />

My bank, apart from keeping my money<br />

and allowing me to spend it on a debit<br />

card, doesn’t really provide me with any<br />

interesting products that I need. For<br />

example, I want to buy iTunes credit,<br />

pay for gaming credits, buy stock, and<br />

that’s me and my needs and desires, but<br />

my bank doesn’t understand me, and it<br />

don’t make it easy to do those things<br />

that I want to do through my bank, and<br />

that’s a problem.<br />

So, the platform we are building really<br />

understands the demographic that<br />

we are targeting. We understand that<br />

they want to do money transfer, Direct<br />

Bank Depositing, Bill Payment, load the<br />

prepaid mobile phone number with<br />

credit for a family member, they want<br />

loans, interests on deposits, and so on.<br />

These are the very specific modules that<br />

we are building within TOAST so that we<br />

end up with this model banking system,<br />

where people can say, well, I want to do<br />

money transfer and I want to load the<br />

prepaid mobile number of my grandma<br />

so we can talk together on Whatsapp.<br />

Someone else might say, I don’t want to<br />

do money transfer but I want to do Bill<br />

Payments to keep the electricity on and<br />

I want to buy gaming credits for my kids<br />

to play games after school. This is where<br />

we are going with it, it is not just about<br />

sending money, its about being a finance<br />

platform with multiple applications. Not<br />

just a transaction processor but about<br />

being a true finance platform. I think we<br />

just really care about getting it right, we<br />

care about understanding our user. To<br />

go back to what I was saying before, my<br />

bank does not understand me because<br />

they cannot process and interpret the<br />

data and say, why are you moving money<br />

to a competitor bank? What can we do<br />

better, to keep you as a customer?<br />

Banks have got into quite a funny place<br />

where they actually spend more money<br />

on user acquisition and very little<br />

money on existing users and if you are<br />

going to keep existing users, you have<br />

to understand that it is a relationship.<br />

Your relationship with your users or<br />

customers is the same as a relationship<br />

with boyfriend, girlfriend, or a brother<br />

or sister. If you do not understand that<br />

person and you cannot communicate<br />

with them (it can quickly) result in a<br />

relationship breakdown. The reason<br />

I think TOAST is so special is because<br />

we put a great deal of emphasis on<br />

understanding our users, we speak to<br />

them, we ask them “what do you want?”.<br />

We try to look at the things that are<br />

happening, the way they are interacting<br />

with the platform, the way the money is<br />

moving toward what is popular, and (also<br />

what is not so) popular. If its not popular,<br />

lets remove that module. If there is<br />

something that people require, lets<br />

figure out how we can build that module<br />

into the platform to continue forward<br />

with this modular based banking system<br />

that I envision where people can pick<br />

and choose what products they want<br />

to use and what’s most very relevant.<br />

So, I think its just the fact that we are<br />

looking at the data, we care about what<br />

the date is telling us, and through this<br />

we are really listening to our customers.<br />

A snapshot of the Toast app.<br />

022<br />

Because of this, we care not so much<br />

about acquiring a ton of new users but<br />

we care about serving the existing ones


we have very, very well and making the<br />

platform very relevant for those people.<br />

What kind of year do you foresee for<br />

your company and the industry as a<br />

whole?<br />

I think there are a lot of people coming<br />

into the payments space now - it’s a<br />

crowded space, FinTech is popular,<br />

Remittance is popular. There are lots<br />

of people out there pitching remittance<br />

ideas; remittance companies, and digital<br />

remittance companies. However, the<br />

majority of them aren’t licensed, they<br />

are just pitching an idea, and there is a<br />

big difference between pitching an idea<br />

and actually having licenses and then<br />

having more licenses in progress and<br />

application.<br />

On top of that, there are some companies<br />

out there that have licenses but they do<br />

not have the right product or the right<br />

systems. It is a complicated business,<br />

once you have the license you have to<br />

actually be able to move the money,<br />

you have to in detail understand how<br />

to move the money, you have to have<br />

the systems in place to track that money,<br />

to do the transaction monitoring and<br />

reporting, you have to be able to do<br />

AML and CFT cross checks. I think what is<br />

going to happen is as a lot of these other<br />

startups that are in this space don’t get<br />

licensed and as we continue to acquire<br />

licenses (we just acquired our license<br />

in Hong Kong, we are in the process<br />

of acquiring our license in Singapore,<br />

we just started our application for our<br />

license in the UK, for example), some of<br />

the larger companies, (e.g.) Transferwise,<br />

Azimo, maybe some of the banks are<br />

going to start to pay attention and they<br />

are going to look at us in more detail.<br />

I would imagine over the next two years<br />

we will be an interesting acquisition<br />

target for some of these bigger players,<br />

but acquisition is not what we are looking<br />

for. We want to build this platform, and<br />

it doesn’t make sense for us to work<br />

so hard on this product simply to be<br />

acquired a year or two later. I think this<br />

is something that might make sense in 5<br />

or 6 years but we have got a lot of work<br />

to do. So, I envisioned over the next 5<br />

years a lot of very hard work, a lot of<br />

growth on the platform and I think you<br />

will see a lot of innovation in terms of<br />

these products that we develop and how<br />

relevant they are to our demographic.<br />

We are building a pre-eminent finance<br />

platform for Filipinos.<br />

What are the key hurdles for growing<br />

your business in the coming years?<br />

The big growth barriers for us of course<br />

are around regulation and licensing<br />

because we are dealing with money. I<br />

think for us, our growth and becoming<br />

popular as a platform will just be based<br />

around the fact that we are deploying<br />

a great product, its easy to use, its<br />

intuitive, the user interface is very slick<br />

and there is a demand for a product<br />

like this. It is very difficult to move<br />

money. Speaking to many people they<br />

expressed their frustration whether<br />

doing it at WesternUnion or via an online<br />

banking system. I have a desk full of<br />

banking tokens and it’s a nightmare. I<br />

think for somebody like us to come in<br />

and to remove a lot of friction from that<br />

process, to have the licensing and to<br />

have the systems in place to move the<br />

money efficiently and safely gives us a lot<br />

of room to grow in this space.<br />

All in all, I think that growth comes<br />

through solving (popular problems).<br />

Growth is then a natural result of<br />

solving a problem that is long overdue<br />

to be solved and that’s what we have to<br />

focus on. We do not need to get carried<br />

away with ourselves, thinking about how<br />

much we are going to spend on user<br />

acquisition or what kind of TV campaigns<br />

we are going to have. No, I think we just<br />

have to continue to build a product that<br />

people want in their hand and solves the<br />

problem which is sending money from<br />

A to B – which currently is a nightmare!<br />

Any recent exciting news you would<br />

like to share with the payments<br />

community?<br />

Pretty much just the fact that we<br />

are going to be launching some new<br />

products in Q2, to expand on this<br />

modular based banking system that<br />

we are building. That will enable Bill<br />

Payments and to load prepaid mobile<br />

phone in the Philippines, directly from<br />

your TOAST app or directly from the web<br />

interface.<br />

Aaron Siwoku (left) at the FinTech Innovation Forum 2015.<br />

023


Hot Jobs<br />

b<br />

Sales Director, PSP<br />

Paris<br />

b<br />

Chief Risk & Compliance Officer<br />

UK<br />

b<br />

Solution Consultant<br />

Rotterdam Area<br />

b<br />

Product Developer, PTS<br />

Munich<br />

b<br />

Payment Consultant<br />

Germany<br />

b<br />

Product Integrator, PTS<br />

Munich<br />

b<br />

Business Analyst, PTS<br />

Wiesbaden & Munich<br />

b<br />

Senior Java Developer<br />

Amsterdam<br />

b<br />

Business Architect, PTS<br />

Wiesbaden & Munich<br />

b<br />

Senior C Developer<br />

Amsterdam<br />

b<br />

Sales Director, High Risk<br />

Merchants<br />

London<br />

b<br />

Solution Architect<br />

Amsterdam<br />

024


Events<br />

Date: Jan. 27-29, 2015 | Kuala Lumpur<br />

The conference will cover numerous<br />

topics such as ‘Innovation and<br />

Emerging Technology in Retail<br />

Banking’, ‘Understanding your<br />

Customer: Why it’s not an option’<br />

and ‘Challenges in moving from<br />

a product-centric to a customercentric<br />

organisation’. Delegates will<br />

have the opportunity to network<br />

with professionals from industry<br />

leading organisations.<br />

Date: Jan. 25-26, 2016 | Copenhagen<br />

This event will examine why the<br />

importance of a good strategy<br />

has never been more significant,<br />

especially with the large increase<br />

in new market players competing<br />

with the traditional banks. The<br />

conference will also discuss the<br />

future of real-time payments<br />

and possible risks banks need to<br />

consider.<br />

Date: Jan. 26-28, 2016 | London<br />

The event brings together over<br />

700 global public transport<br />

executives, government officials<br />

and service providers - all looking<br />

to kick-start their year with the<br />

latest technologies, research and<br />

knowledge, while networking with<br />

clients and valuable new contacts.<br />

Use promotional code “PCN20” to<br />

claim 20% discount on ticket price.<br />

Date: Jan 27-28, 2016 | Stockholm<br />

Nordic MCP 2016 will feature 8<br />

keynote presentations, 2 interesting<br />

tracks, 600 minutes of networking.<br />

After years of doubt whether<br />

mobile payments will take off,<br />

now we believe this argument is<br />

finished. Nordic MCP will focus its<br />

attention on what this means for<br />

retailers, what are the true benefits<br />

and what are the changes in<br />

consumer behaviour as a result.<br />

025


Payments and<br />

Cards Network<br />

Driving Innovation through knowledge<br />

You have any suggestions or ideas for<br />

the next issue of our <strong>PCM</strong> eMagazine?<br />

Get in touch today and maybe you will<br />

be featured in the next edition:<br />

Amsterdam Office<br />

Herengracht 576<br />

1017 CJ<br />

Amsterdam<br />

The Netherlands<br />

Email: info@<br />

paymentsandcardsnetwork.com<br />

Tel: +31 20 3030 257<br />

Fax: +31 20 8208 295<br />

Follow us now and stay up-to-date<br />

with the latest happenings in the<br />

payment world!

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!