MBR_ISSUE 40_Lowres

Malta Business Review
BEST OF CATEGORY SERIES
Vasilije Lekovic, Head of Gaming Accounts, Trustly
TRUSTLY
Leading the
Payments Industry
MBR interviews Vasilije Lekovic, Head of Gaming Accounts,
Trustly, who talks about how Trustly is addressing the upcoming
PSD2 regulation coming into effect this year, the latest trends
in payments, global opportunities, and challenges payment
service providers face in a rapidly changing market. The
discussion offers valuable insight into the challenges of
international e-commerce, internet and recent market changes.
By George Carol
MBR: What are some of Trustly’s most
important projects and success stories
to date?
VL: Since it's founded in 2008, Trustly has been
disrupting the payments and online gambling
industries with its innovative product that
offers instant deposits and withdrawals
directly from the consumer's bank account
across 29 markets in Europe. In the highly
competitive online gambling environment
nowadays, it's very important that the users
can deposit and withdraw their money
instantly, securely and with a simplified user
experience and that is the reason why Trustly
has found its place in the cashiers of most of
the operators operating in Europe.
Apart from our core product, Trustly is
continuously offering other innovative
products and functionalities. One of those
is our Pay N Play product that allows online
gambling websites to offer a frictionless
experience to their users that allows them
to deposit and play right away, without going
through a lengthy and unpopular registration
process. This 'no-account' experience is
possible due to the innovative KYC feature of
Trustly that allows the operators to verify their
users in a simple and effective way.
Since being introduced to the online gambling
market, Pay N Play has become extremely
popular among merchant and consumers,
especially in the markets of Sweden and
Finland, with the operators such as Ninja
Casino and Snabbare leading the way.
MBR: With the PSD2 coming into effect this
year, how is Trustly achieving compliance
with the Directive? What are the greatest
specific challenges banks are facing?'
VL: Trustly has been closely involved in
the discussions with regards to the PSD2
implementation, as a regulated financial
institution under the Swedish FSA, as
well as the member of ECB-driven Euro
Retail Payment Board’s working group
on payment initiation services, co-chair
of European API Evaluation Group and a
member of the Payment System Market
Expert Group, which is an advisory body to
the European Commission. With over ten
years of experience in fin-tech/bank transfer
space and a network of 3000+ banks that
we offer to our merchants, Trustly has the
expertise that has been very useful in these
discussions. We believe that PSD2 will help
bring improvements and innovation into the
bank-related services and banks opening
their API's will definitely benefit us in order
to be able to offer an even better product
to our clients and the end consumers.
The greatest challenge that the banks will
be facing will be updating their technical
infrastructure and finding the best models
to open their APIs to the interested parties.
MBR: What does Trustly bring different
compared to other software vendors
counterparts, especially in the local
Fintech space?
VL: Trustly offers an instant, safe and secure
method for paying directly from your bank
account across Europe. Apart from that,
our product offers innovative features and
functionalities, such as our Lean KYC product
that helps our merchants verify their users
with the bank KYC data. Last but not least,
our Pay N Play and Direct Debit products offer
the additional edge to online providers and
help them solve their conversion issues and
offer a frictionless experience to their users.
We believe that our variety of products,
strong technology and innovation that we
offer, together with pan-European coverage
differentiate us from other companies in the
fin-tech space.
MBR: What are the clear benefits for
online merchants accepting local payment
methods and how will the way we pay for
what we buy over the internet change over
the next few years?
VL: Local payment methods usually have the
advantage of being widely used and accepted
by the users in specific local markets, which
can help the online merchants to penetrate
those markets in a more effective way.
However, in the recent years the behaviour of
the online consumers is changing and some
other parameters become more important
for them, such as speed, safety and simplicity
of their payment experience. We believe
that this trend will continue and therefore
the payment providers will have to continue
innovating in order to stay competitive. Trustly
welcomes this challenge because innovation
and technology are at our core.
MBR: What are the projects that you are
most looking forward to in 2018 and beyond?
VL: In 2018 we are looking forward to
successfully rolling out our Pay N Play product
in new markets across Europe, as well as
further improving our offering by adding new
banks, products and functionalities. Apart from
that, we are continuously striving for innovation
and our goal is to become a pan-European
leader in the payments industry. MBR
All rights reserved - Copyright 2018
EDITOR’S
Note
While many of the payment providers still charge
tiered rate pricing, Trustly started their new
interchange pricing model IN 2008 by adding
just a small mark-up over interchange rates in
an effort to simplify the fee structure and be
more transparent. Awarded Rising Star status
by Deloitte as Sweden's second-fastest growing
technology company, Trustly is the only company
to our knowledge that offers exceptional rates
and services for both small and large merchants
alike and their customers don’t pay fees for data
compliance, statements or junk fees. MBR’s Best
of Category Reviews is pleased to give this online
and merchant account provider high marks and
we think you will too once you experience their
customers first attitude.
To learn more about Trustly: www. trustly.com
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