Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 45 - Live from MPE Berlin: Europe’s Payments Sovereignty Moment: Wero, Banks & Merchant Adoption

Transcript

Ep. 45 - Live from MPE Berlin: Europe’s Payments Sovereignty Moment: Wero, Banks & Merchant Adoption · The Payments Shed

• 0:03
  Welcome back to the Paper Set podcast live here at MPE.
• 0:06
  We are with Riro and we are joined by Fabian Mansfield,
• 0:10
  Chief Acceptance Strategy Officer.
• 0:12
  Babian. Thank you so much for joining
• 0:14
  us. Firstly, congratulations.
• 0:16
  RIRO seems to be the business that everybody is talking about
• 0:19
  here at MPE this year. Tell me more about yourself,
• 0:22
  your background and the business.
• 0:24
  So I'm in payments for a very long time, was in consulting.
• 0:27
  Was it the merchant side responsible for payment?
• 0:30
  And then I went into Deutsche Bank and got in first contact
• 0:34
  with the AP company. And in 23 I decided to move into
• 0:38
  the AP company to continue this endeavor and work in building a
• 0:43
  payment scheme. And tell me more about the
• 0:45
  business, what it, what is the product?
• 0:47
  We are building a new payment solution account to account
• 0:51
  based on SAT, but there's a complete new infrastructure.
• 0:54
  There's a complete new platform based on a four party scheme.
• 0:57
  This acquirers and issuers as known from the account load.
• 1:00
  But for an account to account product, we additionally have a
• 1:04
  wallet solution which is used to enable the payment acceptance in
• 1:10
  the end but also give additional values to the end consumer like
• 1:14
  you have and other volatile solutions this loyalty, BNPL,
• 1:17
  digital ID and so on. What the industry has been
• 1:20
  screaming for exactly. Look we millions of customers
• 1:23
  now 10s of millions of customers.
• 1:25
  What does that scale represent for the market and and what the
• 1:28
  guys API are doing? So we have started in September
• 1:33
  24 is our first pilot for the first proof of concept in in P2P
• 1:39
  and we had gained 50 million consumers within 1 1/2 years.
• 1:43
  I think this is a very incredible number for a new
• 1:47
  solution, especially in the markets as already saturated.
• 1:49
  That shows that there's a demand for an European solution, for a
• 1:53
  new solution that is helping us really kind of to get something
• 1:58
  back in payments, which we have lost over the decades to other
• 2:01
  players outside of Europe. And how important is the bank
• 2:05
  participation in what you guys are trying to achieve?
• 2:08
  It's crucial we are backed by banks.
• 2:11
  So we do have something here. Additionally, this party
• 2:15
  acquires and the bank is our gateway to the customer.
• 2:19
  So busy banks we can reach very easily a big number of
• 2:24
  customers. We do have a representation
• 2:27
  currently on nearly 100% in Belgium, above 95% in France and
• 2:33
  so on. But in Germany we are keeping up
• 2:35
  is about 80%. So there is a big reach.
• 2:38
  Why are the banks and We are indie mobile banking apps and
• 2:42
  additionally via our own app and.
• 2:44
  What does this mean for the merchants?
• 2:46
  When when? Maybe look at a new payment
• 2:48
  method? What does it mean?
• 2:50
  So also the merchants are looking for European solutions,
• 2:52
  they're looking to have an alternative to a market that is
• 2:56
  dominated from basically also US schemes.
• 3:00
  You have as he cards, but we also have PayPal which is quite
• 3:03
  important for e-commerce in in Germany and merchants are
• 3:06
  looking for alternatives for alternatives that not only on a
• 3:09
  cost base but also on a feature base.
• 3:12
  And as I said, we are building something that is at least on
• 3:16
  par with existing debit card solutions and giving more of a
• 3:19
  values to this. So this is an interesting value
• 3:22
  proposition for the merchants and additionally of course a
• 3:25
  cost factor and Omni channel. We do have in store and
• 3:29
  e-commerce with the same solution and we do have, of
• 3:32
  course also the cross-border capabilities for merchants.
• 3:37
  Which we talk a lot about sovereignty in the payments
• 3:40
  world. What does that actually mean?
• 3:43
  That means kind of creating and way out of having the
• 3:48
  dependencies on the USA making scheme.
• 3:50
  So if you are travelling currently through Euro, the only
• 3:53
  way to have payment all the time is US based.
• 3:57
  Yeah. So what we need to create is an
• 3:59
  alternative. So we are building a very
• 4:01
  solution, but it's the same time we are building also the
• 4:03
  interoperability, this very strong European local solutions
• 4:07
  like B Zoom, MB Pay Bank of my pay and this mobile pay this
• 4:13
  year UOPR coalition, which is something to speed up the Intel
• 4:19
  ability and not to wait until we have sorted out which is the
• 4:22
  future and so on. But really to work together to
• 4:25
  create and reach. And we have currently 130
• 4:28
  million customers all together and we are talking to more
• 4:31
  solutions and expanding into more countries.
• 4:34
  And how does them wear a compare to digital wallets and other
• 4:38
  card options? It is a digital wallet compared
• 4:42
  to a card. As I said, functionality parity
• 4:45
  at least this added values additionally because the
• 4:48
  consumer is tend to have one to have it all in one and also we
• 4:53
  need to get in the daily habit of the consumer.
• 4:55
  So we need to create as much as we possible options for the
• 5:01
  consumer to pay and create these opportunities.
• 5:05
  It makes quite good sense really when you've got Sony merchants
• 5:08
  and consumers that maybe consumers weren't aware they
• 5:12
  needed it, but being offered it is kind of that game changer,
• 5:15
  right? That's the reason why we have
• 5:18
  this two wallet or two channel strategy with our stand alone
• 5:23
  app and but also integrated in the banking app because see
• 5:27
  barrier to activate customers to enroll customers.
• 5:30
  It's much easier if it comes through the banking app.
• 5:32
  So trust and security are very crucial factors for the
• 5:35
  consumer. And if it comes from your house
• 5:37
  banks that you trust in because you are business bank, then of
• 5:40
  course, there is kind of entrust a benefit for us as a solution.
• 5:44
  You just click on I accept the terms and condition and you can
• 5:47
  enroll and stand alone gives us in the future more possibilities
• 5:51
  because we can develop things faster, we can enroll things
• 5:54
  faster to the consumer. And there's also a synergies
• 5:58
  because it's only one app for all the banks.
• 6:01
  But for now, we are doing this dual strategy.
• 6:03
  Banks decide currently which one and we have more and more banks
• 6:06
  that are committed to do both. And this is the guy where we
• 6:11
  reach the consumer. And what does the road map look
• 6:14
  like for common e-commerce deployment?
• 6:17
  So we have started end of last year this the e-commerce pilot
• 6:21
  in Germany. We are now wamping up e-commerce
• 6:24
  in Germany by getting merchants activated and we have a lot of
• 6:28
  merchants that are currently in project to build this.
• 6:30
  So as you know implementing a new payment method is not a part
• 6:35
  for a merchant. So they have projects, they have
• 6:37
  allocated people and we will see more and more over the coming
• 6:41
  months merchants going live in Germany.
• 6:43
  We have the same situation in Belgium where we just launched
• 6:46
  e-commerce and we will continue with the launch in France, but
• 6:51
  then additionally continue to add new use cases and features
• 6:55
  to our solution. Are you seeing any markets a
• 6:57
  little bit more difficult when it comes to pushing and put it
• 7:01
  out in scaling in any certain regions or countries?
• 7:04
  Yeah, of course. I think we picked the most
• 7:07
  challenging markets here in in Europe, the France and Germany,
• 7:11
  it's big markets, but it's already markets that are really
• 7:15
  set this payment. So France is a card market
• 7:17
  really card dominated. So we're entering with an
• 7:20
  account to account payment solution.
• 7:23
  And on the other side, Germany, e-commerce especially, it's
• 7:25
  dominated by PayPal, it's dominated by buy now, pay later,
• 7:31
  the local card scheme, You have a gyro card.
• 7:33
  But we see, and this is the reason we see a trend towards a
• 7:36
  more ICS card reach. So everyone sees a need to to
• 7:42
  adapt and we are. That's also my task to convince
• 7:46
  merchants not to wait until other merchants have launched.
• 7:48
  Because if you just do the wait and see, then we will never
• 7:52
  succeed. Then we will never move away
• 7:54
  from existing solutions and create something new.
• 7:56
  So we have more and more merchants that are really going
• 7:59
  in now without having the full traction, without having the
• 8:03
  full rollout, because we need to have the starting point together
• 8:06
  and we need to work on the ecosystem together.
• 8:09
  And is it do you think that it's kind of vertical specific or is
• 8:12
  it kind of being being able to be used across different
• 8:14
  verticals? It's kind of spread over all
• 8:18
  verticals. We are talking really to to
• 8:20
  everyone. Of course retail is quite
• 8:22
  important for us because retail is also the most interested.
• 8:26
  But we have a lot of interest for example from the petrol and
• 8:29
  DB charging industry, we have in interest in QR code solution, we
• 8:33
  have interest in NFC as solution.
• 8:35
  So that's our advantage that we are really put a wide range of
• 8:39
  product features out. So we can really have kind of a
• 8:43
  specifics for each of the verticals.
• 8:45
  Of course there are verticals which have really specific
• 8:48
  requirements, especially to credit cards, for example car
• 8:51
  rental, which are a little bit more complicated, but we will
• 8:55
  try to find a solution for everyone.
• 8:57
  Nice. And we're here live at MPE.
• 8:59
  What are your thoughts on MPE? How do you find it as an event?
• 9:03
  That's always, I live in Berlin, so it's a kind of a home game
• 9:07
  for me, has some adventures, disadventures.
• 9:10
  But the MPE is a very important meeting place for us because he
• 9:14
  has everyone from the industry is here on an international base
• 9:17
  in Berlin. We meet merchants, we meet our
• 9:20
  partners from the industry, we meet new partners, technical
• 9:22
  service provider. So actually this year I wasn't
• 9:25
  really able to get into the conference actually because you
• 9:28
  had so much interest in our booth and this, this is really
• 9:32
  important and shows that we will be here next year as well.
• 9:34
  Amazing. Last question for you, Fabian.
• 9:37
  If there was one thing in the payments industry that you'd
• 9:40
  like to see banished forever, what would it be?
• 9:44
  I think sometimes the payment industry is too self centric.
• 9:48
  So we think payment is the heart of everything and we do forget
• 9:52
  that payment is a very important piece, but especially for a lot
• 9:56
  of consumers and also a lot of merchants, especially the
• 9:59
  smaller merchants that do not have a payment specialist
• 10:02
  working with some. It's kind of the same like the
• 10:05
  electric power, it's really something needed, but it only
• 10:09
  gets attention if it's not working.
• 10:10
  I. Kind of like it, yeah.
• 10:12
  It's a really good point. So, so we need sometimes in the
• 10:15
  parent industry do a step back and really ask the people about
• 10:18
  and not say, I think the best UX for the consumer is pong, pong,
• 10:22
  pong without asking actually as a consumer, because we think we
• 10:26
  as a consumer, which we are not, because we are payment experts
• 10:29
  and we have a completely different view.
• 10:31
  I couldn't agree more. I mean, thank you so much for
• 10:34
  your time. Have a great time at the event.
• 10:36
  Thank you.