Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 38 - Live from MPE Berlin: Beyond APMs: The Rise of Specialised Payment Methods with Optty

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Ep. 38 - Live from MPE Berlin: Beyond APMs: The Rise of Specialised Payment Methods with Optty · The Payments Shed

• 0:01
  Welcome to the Payment Share podcast live here at MPE Today
• 0:06
  And this morning, our first interview of today.
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  We are joined by Lincoln Dundas, VP of Partnerships and
• 0:12
  Enablement at Opti. Thanks for joining us, Lincoln.
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  Tell more about yourself and Opti.
• 0:17
  Yeah. So I'm yeah, Link and at Opti
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  where I guess like a white label payment infrastructure, a layer
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  in that sense. So we've integrated over 150
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  payment brands into our stack and then we provide that single
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  API to banks, orchestrators, gateways, schemes all across the
• 0:36
  world so that then they can provide that downstream to their
• 0:39
  clients. Nice.
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  And look, in the payments world, we talk about fragmentation.
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  What? What is Fragmentation?
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  And what's? Driving it because is it a
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  buzzword? Or actually, is there some
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  thought behind the word itself? So if you think about it, what
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  like 10 to 15 years ago we had the explosion of digital wallets
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  moving into then BNPL and now account to account crypto stable
• 1:08
  coins. In that sense, it's driven by
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  what we see as less of a dependency on a game rail, less
• 1:18
  of a cost of acceptance for them, then also on a consumer
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  demand. So our role that we say in that
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  sense is trying to allow our clients to as opposed to seeing
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  it as a problem for them. How do they harness that to be
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  able to provide that to their clients.
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  So if they want to be able to expand to, you know, Europe, go
• 1:40
  from here to the States, they can without having to go, right.
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  Do I need to have the right mix of whatever specific payment
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  type it might be? When it comes to talking about
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  payment methods, is it being driven by education from payment
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  companies or is it merchants driving themselves?
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  Yeah, sorry. So, yeah, So from a merchant
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  point of view, obviously they want to be able to, I guess,
• 2:00
  adopt what a new consumer demographic is in that sense.
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  So if they're selling something which has got a high AOV, then
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  they want to be able to switch on Scala pay after pay client or
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  whatever it might be. And then with the government
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  mandated LPMS with being fee fee free.
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  So some countries like Greece have to have that for their
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  clients. I'm going to we talk about
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  having the right mix of pay methods as you mentioned in in
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  each country. Why is it specialized pay
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  methods over LPMS or Apms? Yeah.
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  So if we think about that, that what 4 billion people in the
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  world don't have access to cards.
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  So the alternative in that sense is actually what the norm would
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  be say in some parts of the world where it's telcos that
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  their own the digital wallet there.
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  They're not funding source is not a bank, is not a bank
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  account. Funding source is not a card.
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  So if that's 90% of what the population uses to then check
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  out, that's not what the old alternative is.
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  That's the norm. Yeah.
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  So from our point of view, you know, trying to then integrate
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  that, that would be a specialised payment type.
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  So from our point of view, integrating that across the
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  world is that that I guess the differentiation between what is
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  the norm or what is the perceived norm in this part of
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  the world to then having I guess what the norm is for someone
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  else on the other side of the world.
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  And I've seen that the impact then for merchants is increased
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  basket 100%, right and then increased conversion.
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  What's the? Back of that, the way that I see
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  it is that it's not necessarily about just trying to have more
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  payment types on the on the check out flow.
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  It's allowing more actual consumers to pay.
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  OK, It's not always about just that, well, I need to have 10
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  different ways to pay on my check out flow.
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  It's I know the fact there's a consumer demographic that sits
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  behind why I'm switch that on. I think sometimes quite
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  overwhelming as a consumer, right?
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  You see all these different. Payments, yeah.
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  Tell me a little bit more about kind of your developments from
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  an OPTI perspective in the world of like crypto and stablecoin,
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  where's where's that come from an OPTI perspective?
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  So we've been supporting I guess crypto based payments for about
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  2 1/2 years now. So for that like very specific
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  value exchange format that that it is.
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  And I think the legitimization of it by certain like central
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  bank digital currencies in that sense also PayPal stablecoin,
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  that's been a lot of the adoption that that we've seen.
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  And then having the inbound request, which is quite rare,
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  right? So having on the retail and
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  professional services side. So for sole traders and whatnot
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  having their invoices paid, they're requesting to have
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  crypto and stablecoin for that, using it as crossbow a border.
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  And tell me a little bit more on kind of Opti's view on AI.
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  It's going to probably be something a lot of people talk
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  about over 44 hours as they have done for the last couple of
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  years. Where does Opti sit in in their
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  thoughts on that? So we've we're probably
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  utilizing a few AI driven initiatives within our brand and
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  that you know and that goes across the board from how we
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  integrate things, how we provide what that I guess seamless
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  integration experience is both from a consumer view when
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  they're going to use the merchants checkout flow on who
• 5:36
  the gateway provider is that we provide that downstream to.
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  So it's not necessarily about us providing I guess what that
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  consumer experience is at the core of what of what we do, but
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  it's that merchant being able to have that interoperability for
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  it. So that's I guess what we're
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  trying to make it smooth and seamless.
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  And then if we can adapt and scale its speed, we're going to
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  be able to do that as well. Perfect.
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  And when I talk about open banking sort of big people, we
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  talk about wallet based and wallet based payments.
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  What are your thoughts on wallet based payments?
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  Wallet based payments right now? Well, I think as I was saying
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  before, I think that that over 50% of e-commerce across the
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  globe is processed on an APM and SPM as as I was saying before.
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  So on the wallet base and what if you want to differentiate it
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  between Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Afterpay, in my view,
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  they kind of all sit in that kind of same realm.
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  The ability for that is much more of a liability shift moving
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  away from what the other issuer or the acquirer would deem as I
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  guess risk. So the flexibility for those
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  payment types for merchant demographics being like high
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  risk, but that's where we want to be able to see, I guess more
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  of that growth and that continued growth in that sense.
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  Perfect and day one MPE. Yep, Yep.
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  Tell me. More about what What do you love
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  about MPE? So I think this is my third year
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  here and I'll continue to come back for sure.
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  So I think the reason that I like it so much is that it's
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  intimate. It's all the right brands that
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  that you want. It's the right people from those
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  brands. And of course it's like, you
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  know, not a large event in that sense.
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  You get to see everyone again and again.
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  It's it's probably the best innovative conversations that
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  that I get to have each year, I think.
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  It's good feedback and last part shelf of shame.
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  Tell us what frustrates you in the payments world.
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  So specifically from my point of view is legacy brands that that
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  are kind of slow to modernize what their infrastructure stack
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  is. So there's probably a lot of, I
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  don't know, maybe acquirers out there who won't like what I'm
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  what I just said, but that's our role to try to help in that
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  sense. So yeah, don't be afraid of I
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  guess what's coming down the pipe and what your clients are
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  asking you for. There's always help to be able
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  to get it done. Yeah, I think it's a really good
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  point, being open to knowing that you've got legacy stack
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  100% and actually doing something about it, right?
• 8:12
  Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much for your time.
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  Have a great show.