0:14

Hello and welcome to FinTech Insider Focus.

0:17

I'm Rachel Pandian, Ventures Product Lead here

0:19

at 11FS and in this series, in

0:21

collaboration with Visa, we're going to shine

0:23

light on FinTech in different parts of

0:25

the world. In this

0:27

half of the series, we're looking closer at

0:29

Europe. We deep dive into a number of

0:32

topics which are shaping financial services across the

0:34

continent and in each episode, we shine a

0:36

light on a particular country or region. In

0:39

this episode, we take a closer look at e-commerce

0:41

in France. As one of the

0:44

largest economies in Europe and the seventh largest in

0:46

the world, you could say they're a pretty big

0:48

deal. In the past

0:50

10 years, France's annual online spend has

0:52

grown by 186%, making

0:55

it the third largest European and

0:57

sixth largest global e-commerce market, while

1:00

71% of French shoppers shop based

1:02

on their brand loyalties, making France

1:04

the third most brand loyal country

1:07

in the world. Mobile and social

1:09

commerce is also a growing trend, where 45% of French

1:11

18 to 35 year olds like to buy directly on

1:16

social media. So there's

1:18

a lot to unpack here in this vibrant

1:20

e-commerce market, particularly when it comes to the

1:22

customer experience. We want to look at

1:24

the removal of friction in these experiences and ask how

1:26

much friction can you take away before you need to

1:29

put some back in. So this

1:31

is exactly what we're discussing today. What

1:33

is the current state of the French e-commerce sector?

1:35

What are the pain points? What are the use

1:37

cases? And how can one of

1:39

the biggest economies in the world continue to

1:42

provide an effective e-commerce infrastructure for all? To

1:45

have this conversation, I'm delighted to be

1:47

joined by a panel of fantastic guests.

1:49

So firstly, a big hello to my

1:51

co host, Lindsay Varello, enabler in sport

1:53

business growth at Visa Europe. So great

1:55

to have you on the podcast, Lindsay.

1:57

How are you today? Hi,

1:59

Rachel. really well thanks thanks for having me.

2:02

No of course and do tell our listeners a

2:04

bit about yourself and what you do. Sure

2:07

absolutely so part

2:09

of Visa in Europe I lead our

2:11

European efforts to broaden the relationships that

2:13

Visa has with the payment enabler community

2:16

so that includes businesses such as payment

2:18

gateways software platforms that are truly enabling

2:20

access to digital payments for millions of

2:22

merchants across the world and I also

2:25

own the small business agenda for Visa

2:27

in Europe on the seller side.

2:29

Amazing stuff so plenty to talk about today.

2:31

We are also delighted

2:34

to welcome George Owen CEO of Stanser and

2:36

our first FinTech Insider guest who's going to

2:38

take the entire podcast on the move in

2:40

a taxi. Thank you so much for joining

2:43

us can you tell us a little bit

2:45

more about you your background and what Stanser are

2:47

up to you at the moment. Hi Rachel

2:49

thanks so much for having me it's it's

2:51

a pleasure to be here even though I

2:53

am in transit. I'm a

2:55

lawyer by trade but then switched to

2:58

business and discovered

3:00

the payment world a few years ago

3:02

and I am absolutely fascinated by it.

3:05

What we do at Stanser is

3:07

quite simple we are a fully

3:09

fledged payment service provider that emanated

3:11

from a big telco group in

3:14

France and

3:16

we have distinctive expertise in

3:19

credit card and separate direct

3:21

payments in the subscription

3:23

and recurring businesses space and

3:26

we have also launched a

3:28

dedicated payment service with a

3:31

target towards small

3:33

merchants and independence and

3:36

I think that's what we will

3:38

be talking about today. Yeah

3:41

for sure and last but

3:43

not least a big hello to Armand Osantos

3:45

CPTO of Payplug. Thank you so much for

3:47

joining us today and welcome to the podcast.

3:49

For those who don't know can you tell

3:52

us a little bit more about you and

3:54

what you do. Thank you Rachel

3:56

yeah it's a pleasure to be here with

3:58

all of you today. So,

4:00

as the chief product and technology officer

4:03

at Payplug, which

4:05

is part of the group BPC,

4:07

so for the ones

4:09

who don't know, Group BPC is actually

4:12

the second largest banking group in France

4:14

and leading with the issue in continental

4:16

Europe. I

4:19

manage product, take data and lead

4:21

a team of 160 individuals. Payplug

4:25

is actually a significant player

4:27

in the French e-commerce

4:30

ecosystem. We process

4:32

tens of billions in transactions per

4:34

year for over 17,000 merchants and we collaborate

4:39

with over 800 partners in France.

4:42

Payplug's unique selling proposition is its

4:44

performance in the French market, so we will

4:47

probably talk a bit more about that later,

4:49

but performance means the

4:51

transaction acceptance rate

4:54

and we target French SMEs and global

4:56

actors who want

4:58

to optimize acceptance rates in Europe

5:01

and in France. By

5:03

the way, Visa and Payplug

5:05

have provided jointly with the

5:07

Group BPC the ticketing payment

5:09

system for the Paris Olympics

5:11

and parroting games that will start

5:14

in a few weeks here. It's

5:18

nearly already a million transactions from

5:21

over 170 countries that were processed

5:23

during this ticketing phase. Regarding

5:27

the Payplug product, it's

5:29

an omnichannel product where

5:32

we focus on merchant experience for

5:34

seamless and efficient physical and online

5:37

payments. Just to conclude on

5:40

this introduction, I've been

5:42

involved personally in five different French

5:45

intermediaries over the past 15 years. I'm

5:48

very glad to discuss the French

5:50

payments landscape with 96% of yourani.

5:54

Brilliant. Well, it's so great to have you and thank

5:56

you everyone for joining. Before we

5:58

jump in, a little bit of a question...

6:00

disclaimer just as a reminder listeners that the

6:02

views or opinions of our panel are their

6:05

own and don't necessarily reflect those of the

6:07

companies they are representing and

6:09

as always nothing we say should

6:11

be taken as tax, financial or

6:13

legal advice please please please do

6:15

your own research. So

6:18

now we've got that covered let's jump

6:20

in. Starting with you Lindsay

6:22

can you give us a little bit of

6:24

an overview of the e-commerce space in Europe

6:26

and why this is a market that remains

6:28

a huge opportunity for disruption and improvement. Absolutely

6:31

Rachel thanks I mean I think we

6:33

all saw it during the pandemic it

6:36

was really the story the business that

6:38

the world changed the way that they

6:40

engage with commerce with payments and it

6:42

really truly accelerated e-commerce in a way

6:45

that nobody could have anticipated and actually

6:48

since then we've seen the volume

6:50

of online transactions reach

6:52

par with face-to-face transactions for the

6:54

first time ever and that is

6:56

a trend that is not reversing

6:58

we are truly in that digital

7:00

age and e-commerce is

7:02

a critical way and digital payments

7:05

is a critical way for consumers

7:07

and businesses to exchange funds and

7:10

that growth is not just in the traditional

7:12

card sector space which continues to grow the

7:14

retail the product-based

7:17

space but actually we're seeing a

7:19

lot of growth also in the

7:21

services sector into B2B and from

7:23

my perspective what I see is

7:25

a really emerging trend is the

7:27

increase in embedded everything

7:29

really software platforms that are accord the

7:32

way that businesses are being run and

7:34

they are embedding payments they're embedding finance

7:36

in such a way that it's truly

7:38

seamless in the way that they operate

7:41

and that has created yet another acceleration

7:43

and where e-commerce becoming such a seamless

7:45

integrated part of the way that they

7:47

do business we are truly at a

7:50

new dawn. I think it's very

7:52

interesting that you mentioned COVID because what we see is

7:55

that what COVID did obviously e-commerce

7:57

was growing and kept upgrowing thanks

8:00

to COVID. But there's a particular

8:02

segment of the population which

8:05

are the smaller merchants, which usually have

8:07

more traditional ways. It's more difficult to

8:09

nudge them to change systems. And what

8:11

COVID did is it really nudged the

8:14

smaller enterprise segment to go

8:16

into e-commerce. It's people that

8:18

usually had traditional brick and

8:20

mortar shops. And they

8:23

had to move to e-commerce. They had

8:25

to do click and collect. And that's

8:27

the segment that we're trying to address

8:30

at Stancer is to offer them an

8:32

omnichannel payment services in order

8:34

to serve, obviously, their traditional business,

8:36

which they're used to with proximity

8:38

payments, but also e-commerce and everything

8:40

that that can include. It's

8:43

so true. And I think also to add, on

8:46

the COVID point, how many people found themselves

8:48

with more time exploring more hobbies and getting

8:50

into side hustles? Yes, I might do my

8:53

nine to five, but I also might in

8:55

my spare time make mugs

8:57

or pots or like, you know, I might get

8:59

into knitting and therefore I want to sell my,

9:01

you know, sell my wares, but I don't want

9:04

to, you know, I'm not a business myself. I

9:06

just want a way that I can quickly take

9:08

payment and manage my own little business. And then,

9:10

you know, Etsy was only met

9:12

the needs of a small group of those people

9:15

and actually using different alternative channels became important.

9:17

And so I think e-commerce as the

9:19

way it's grown has been a real

9:21

enabler for those businesses. But

9:23

this episode, we're trying to focus on

9:25

the French e-commerce space in particular. And

9:27

I think, you know, we've got such

9:30

an international listener base. So I'd love

9:32

to know, Armand, maybe starting with you,

9:34

what should our international listeners know about

9:36

the market in particular and its SME

9:38

and e-commerce credentials? Well, what

9:40

I can share with you

9:42

is some data from the

9:44

BBC Digital and Payments Barometer

9:47

2024 that

9:49

reveals key trends on the French market.

9:52

Actually, France now is the

9:55

continental Europe leader

9:57

in contact with the European

9:59

Union. contactless transactions by amount. It's

10:03

around six out of 10 in-store

10:05

payments in France, which are made

10:07

via contactless methods nowadays. And

10:12

it's not just limited to contactless

10:14

payments made with cards, because we can

10:16

also see a 23-foot

10:19

increase in mobile payments since 2019. So

10:24

I think that what it

10:26

shows is that French customers

10:28

are increasingly comfortable with digital

10:30

wallets and technology that reduce

10:32

friction in payment processes, both

10:35

online and offline. And

10:38

yeah, I think that

10:41

what we can see and what we

10:43

can say is that French market is

10:45

receptive to innovative payment solutions. Yeah,

10:48

for sure. George, what have

10:50

you observed at Stanser? Are there any specific

10:52

quirks around the French market? I

10:55

think I'd say two things. I mean,

10:57

I'd be honest. I mean, I 100% agree

10:59

with what Armand said. The

11:02

view is I think people

11:04

are genuinely more and more sophisticated

11:06

around payments. And I don't know if

11:09

it's a function of

11:11

just the evolution and

11:13

the space the

11:15

payments are taking. Or it's also, I

11:17

think we're at a time where

11:19

for more sophisticated merchants, I think we're

11:21

at the end of an IT cycle.

11:25

And so people need to

11:27

upgrade quite substantially. And they've

11:29

been relying on more, I say,

11:31

archaic systems. And so they're looking at

11:33

payments and new ways to do payments.

11:36

And the reason I'm saying that is

11:39

what we do is we also serve

11:41

larger merchants that are based on subscription-based

11:43

businesses like Telcos. And

11:46

all that is the same as an e-commerce

11:48

payment, essentially. It's just slightly more technical. And

11:51

I feel that, at least in

11:53

France, people are more and more willing

11:55

to change, willing to

11:57

move from an older technology to a

12:00

new one. and looking for new ways

12:02

to just make it simpler and

12:05

more seamless for the end consumer to

12:07

pay. Yeah, and

12:09

just for some stats on the French

12:11

market, so the e-commerce sector, products and

12:13

services combined generated €159.9 billion in revenue

12:15

in 2023, growing

12:20

by 10.5% over the previous

12:22

year. The number of transactions continued to

12:24

rise by 4.9% along

12:26

with the average basket value, so people are spending more

12:28

money, but only 5.4%, but I think still an important

12:30

trend. And I think there are 60.92 million active

12:37

internet users in a population of 65.51 million. So

12:39

it's clear that the internet is really

12:43

a key part of how the

12:46

market and the consumers are interacting with

12:48

businesses and services. So we've talked a

12:50

lot about payments, but really

12:52

underlying payments is the experience that comes

12:54

with that. And you talked there, Georgia,

12:56

a little bit around telcos and that

12:59

being a little bit more complicated as

13:01

a product, but cart abandonment rates, so

13:03

critical in e-com, no matter what your

13:05

product is, whether it's a subscription, if it's

13:08

a one-off payment, and it's the biggest indicator

13:10

of friction and poor UX in e-commerce payments.

13:12

So what are some of the key pain

13:14

points that are leading to this? And

13:16

Lindsay, maybe we start with you here. Yeah,

13:19

absolutely. And I think it's been

13:21

a very consistent observation that we've

13:23

noticed as we've had that increase

13:26

in e-com and digital transactions. Unfortunately,

13:29

I think the performance has not

13:31

really kept up to pace on

13:33

the digital spaces it has with

13:35

cart present, where we're authenticating in

13:37

person. So today we see an

13:39

average of a 10% lower authorization

13:41

approval rate in a digital transaction

13:44

versus an in-person transaction. And we

13:46

also see up to 10 times

13:48

higher fraud rate. So there are

13:50

a lot of issues that we

13:52

need to really address in order

13:55

to ensure that there's a very

13:57

great digital US experience that meets

13:59

the expectations that consumers

14:01

and merchants are having in the

14:03

physical world. There's

14:06

a bunch of user experience challenges as

14:08

well that are creating problems. We sometimes

14:10

see 10 screens through

14:13

the checkout process that are getting

14:15

you from purchasing commencement to completion.

14:18

I think there's a stat around it

14:20

takes on average over three minutes to

14:23

check out a shopping transaction on an

14:25

e-com transaction in Europe, and

14:27

consumers aren't necessarily willing to wait that long. I

14:29

think we've done a lot of research in this

14:32

space and they said 62% of customers will

14:34

give up after two minutes. So we need

14:36

to solve the security and fraud.

14:39

We need to ensure that the tools are

14:41

in place that protect consumers, that protect the

14:43

businesses. But we also need

14:45

to do that with really strong UX. So

14:47

those are the problems that we're coming together

14:50

as an industry to solve. And there's a

14:52

breadth of solutions and tools and the partnerships

14:54

that we have with partners that

14:56

we have like Pay Plug and Stancer, absolutely the

14:59

forefront of this. Yeah, and

15:01

for sure it's definitely when we think about

15:03

some of the high demand products and services

15:05

that are coming out. Alman, you talked about

15:07

the Olympics. We're not just talking about people

15:10

who are going online and trying to buy

15:12

a single product that there's plenty of stock.

15:14

We're talking about millions and

15:16

thousands of people coming onto a website to

15:19

try and buy a thing at a specific

15:21

moment in time and how we make those

15:23

experiences feel as seamless as it feels to

15:25

just check out for your online shopping. I

15:27

myself put my name in the ring for

15:29

Taylor Swift tickets. I went day after day

15:31

to get them, but that was a payments

15:33

experience at this core, which is

15:35

wild because really I was trying to see the

15:38

Eros tour, but we are where we are. But

15:40

what is the impact of this friction and the

15:42

pain points on merchants? George, maybe

15:44

if you start here, because I'm sure working

15:46

in Stancer, you must be seeing some of

15:49

the pain points that your clients have when it

15:51

comes to delivering these things. I mean,

15:54

I think Lindsay addressed the pain points. I

15:56

think it's more is where the focus is.

15:58

Obviously the focus is... is, I'd

16:01

say it's twofold. The first

16:03

is to really

16:06

enhance the seamlessness

16:09

of the payment process and that's to shorten

16:11

it as much as

16:13

possible. And that comes into

16:16

direct tension with fraud

16:18

management and risk management. And

16:20

so there's an inherent tension

16:22

between the two. And merchants

16:24

are more and more in tune that

16:28

there is this structural

16:31

risk that you need to take. It's either

16:33

you enhance your UX,

16:35

your UI, and you make it more

16:37

seamless and you increase your payment volumes

16:40

and you make it easier for consumers

16:42

to pay. And on the flip side,

16:44

that risk will go up. But

16:46

I think that's something that people are

16:48

taking more and more into account. And

16:51

I think what people want is

16:54

are solutions that can modulate

16:57

between the amount of risk that merchants

16:59

want to take. For

17:01

sure. And Amman, from a payments provider perspective,

17:03

what do you think acquirers or issuers can

17:05

do to improve this? And I think I'd

17:08

love to hear as well from, you know,

17:10

what is the advantage of being a local

17:12

player perhaps in this space? Yeah,

17:15

of course. As I already just

17:17

said, there are a few stages

17:20

that PSPs or

17:23

payment service providers can optimize

17:25

in order to improve performance.

17:28

At Payplay, we focus on

17:31

three main areas, fraud management,

17:33

payment authentication and authorization. So

17:36

I'm sorry, because it might become a bit technical,

17:38

but... We love technical. Okay,

17:41

fine. If we look at

17:44

the fraud management first, I

17:46

think like Joss said, it's

17:48

an ongoing challenge for merchants

17:51

to mitigate financial risks while

17:53

seeking frictionless transactions. So

17:57

PSPs need to provide

17:59

tools. for the

18:01

merchants to be able to do the

18:03

right choices regarding that. And

18:06

that's why at Paypug we use an

18:08

optimized rule engine for

18:10

full prevention and exemption management.

18:14

And actually the results of this rule

18:16

engine is that for every

18:19

acceptance point gained, we

18:21

can see a 50% prediction in charge by

18:23

rate for the merchants. As

18:28

I said, there is the transaction

18:31

authentication, obviously. As

18:34

you probably know, there is a European

18:36

directive, which is the payment services directive

18:38

too. Under

18:41

which the strong authentication is

18:43

now mandatory for every transaction

18:45

unless exemption applies. And

18:48

BSB must have transaction risk

18:51

analysis exemptions to optimize

18:53

the frictionless journals. And

18:56

on this stage as well, at

18:59

Paypug we have developed a nurse authentication

19:01

product with the BPC issuers, which

19:04

allows us to achieve 90 to 98%

19:06

frictionless rate. Just

19:10

to give you an idea of the impact, it's

19:12

between 15% and 20% above the market average. And

19:18

last but not least, at the end of

19:20

the journey there is the transaction authorization and

19:23

the issuing banks who eventually

19:25

decide if they authorize the

19:27

transactions or not. And

19:30

we can also, as BSB,

19:33

when we act as an acquire, to

19:36

improve the

19:39

level of accepted authorization.

19:42

And for that, for example at

19:45

Paypug, we can retry automatically on

19:47

a different route when

19:49

the transaction has failed on the initial one.

19:53

And it helps us to save

19:55

about 5% of initially refused payments.

19:58

So, to answer your question, please. I

20:00

would say that by

20:02

optimizing for management, transaction

20:04

authentication and authorization, requires

20:08

significantly improved economic experience

20:11

in general and in

20:13

France in particular. Yeah, and

20:16

I think that the personalization of

20:18

all these policies is so crucial.

20:20

I worked when I was at Barclays, we

20:23

were in the high growth segment serving startups

20:25

and scale ups and they have such bespoke

20:27

needs and you can't just have the blanket

20:29

policy that you have for specific clients and

20:31

that's what these tools have to be able

20:34

to enable is that for my business and

20:36

for my customers, what does it look like?

20:38

So apart from Payplug, who's doing

20:40

this well? So you know, open question to

20:42

the group, what are the key use cases

20:45

and who's making some strides in this space?

20:48

I was just going to say, I mean,

20:50

I'd love to talk about some of the

20:52

foundational capabilities that Visa has really been investing

20:55

in over the last number of years as

20:57

we've been growing digital commerce. We've really been

20:59

investing in the foundational tools across

21:01

all transactions that can really enable this

21:03

and I think there's some really great

21:05

use cases of where these are being

21:07

utilized well. I mean, maybe just

21:09

to give a little bit of background, I think,

21:12

you know, a couple of the tools that have

21:14

been a real focus, one, network tokenization. So

21:17

network tokenization is where we're removing

21:19

the cardholders' sensitive pan details from

21:21

the transaction. It's getting stored

21:23

into a secure token vault as an

21:25

encrypted credential that is exchanged between the

21:28

merchant acquirer and issuer. It

21:30

works also really successfully with

21:32

credential lifecycle management. So

21:34

it's helping also that UX because you're ensuring

21:37

that card details can be updated in the

21:39

token vault following a lost or stolen card.

21:42

So there's no disruption to the cardholder or

21:44

merchant when they're going to, you know, maybe

21:46

have a renewal of their subscription. That

21:49

card that they initially put in place

21:51

might have expired, but through the token

21:53

vault they're able to get access to

21:55

their refreshed details. So that

21:58

is both protecting the consumer by taking

22:00

the sensitive hand details out

22:02

of the data, protects

22:04

us during data breaches, but it's

22:06

also really helping the user experience.

22:09

And the great thing is we've also seen such

22:11

an uplift in authorization performance as

22:14

we've been rolling out tokenization across the

22:16

region. So we see the six basis

22:18

point increase in payment approval rates globally,

22:21

and it can reduce the rate of fraud by up to 60%,

22:24

providing businesses with much more successful transactions

22:26

and really giving peace of mind. And

22:30

what we really focus on as the

22:32

payment network is ensuring that full ecosystems

22:35

enabled. And Arman talked about their requirements

22:37

for issuers and acquirers to really be

22:39

working together. So we've got over 8,000

22:42

issuers now globally enabled for tokenization and

22:44

200 markets empowered with that technology. So

22:46

you can be confident if you're dealing

22:49

with a merchant or cardholder across

22:51

border, across region, as well as

22:53

locally, domestically, we've got that capability

22:55

in place as a foundation to

22:58

protect those sensitive pan details. And

23:01

then we've also been investing in

23:03

a further technology, Click2Pay, which

23:06

is really trying to close the gap

23:08

for the guest checkout space because tokenization

23:10

is great for card on file, but

23:13

Click2Pay is really helping us to ensure that

23:15

we've got a standardized

23:18

means of transacting when

23:20

you're coming to a merchant for

23:22

the first time, leveraging all of

23:25

that foundational token technology as well,

23:27

removing that pan detail, and also

23:29

importantly improving the user experience because

23:31

it's less sort of steps to go through.

23:34

I think we've seen some great examples

23:36

of these rolling out with some of

23:38

the earlier use cases in Europe. One

23:41

that I love is in Denmark,

23:44

we've got a Great Belt Bridge,

23:46

which is a very high traffic

23:48

bridge where computers are traveling in

23:51

the country and they have

23:53

embedded tokenization within their accounts

23:56

for the people crossing the bridge so

23:58

that when they are detected... coming through

24:00

if they've again lost that card, it

24:02

doesn't sort of kick them out and

24:05

create long queues when they're trying to

24:07

cross the bridge, but really it's helping

24:09

to improve the customer experience in person

24:11

as well as behind the scenes with our card credentials.

24:14

For sure. And George, you

24:17

had something to say on this as well? You

24:19

know, I was gonna say essentially the same thing, but

24:22

I think what is interesting for

24:24

our listeners here is that if you look at

24:26

the massive advantage that

24:29

Almo has at Payplug being part of

24:31

a bigger banking group is obviously that

24:33

they are the PSP, but they also

24:35

are the issuer of the card. So,

24:37

you know, they're enabled, you know, they

24:39

have the capabilities, they have this structural

24:41

advantage to enhance performance at

24:43

that level. I think the response that

24:45

you went through, Lindsay, is a great

24:47

one is that the response to that

24:50

is to tokenize, and that's what enables

24:52

us more independent payment service price that

24:54

are not attached to, you know, a

24:56

larger acquirer or a larger issuer, is

24:58

that with tokenization, we are able to

25:00

really, you know,

25:02

to really reach that performance. And from

25:05

my perspective, which comes from more,

25:08

you know, the subscription-based tokenization is

25:10

a massive game changer because that

25:13

enables to make

25:16

recurring payments much more

25:18

fluid and much more seamless for

25:21

these businesses that rely on

25:24

recurring business models. Yeah, and

25:26

that will lead us very nicely into part

25:29

two. So we're gonna take a little pause

25:31

here, but coming up after this super

25:33

quick break, we will discuss how to

25:36

remove friction from payments, UX, and e-commerce,

25:38

and how this might improve access to

25:40

services for more vulnerable customers. So don't

25:42

go anywhere. So, Visa's

25:46

Fintech Fast Track program is streamlining

25:49

the onboarding process for Fintechs, enabling

25:51

them to gain access to Visa's

25:53

powerful capabilities and network. Visa

25:55

and their enablement partners help

25:57

Fintech's launch and scale cards,

26:00

virtual- credentials and disbursement programs.

26:02

To learn more, visit partner.visa.com.

26:09

Welcome back to FinTech Inside of Focus, where we

26:11

are taking a close look at e-commerce in France.

26:13

We've touched on the pain points and the main

26:16

use cases in this space, but I'd love to

26:18

dive more into the impact this actually has on

26:20

the merchants and the customers that they're trying to

26:22

serve. So George,

26:24

we were just talking in the break

26:26

there. I'll go to you first. How

26:28

can seamless e-commerce solutions and good UX

26:30

from acquiring and accepting providers help address

26:32

the issues that we were talking about

26:34

in part one and not just improve

26:36

business operations for SMEs, but improve the

26:38

businesses themselves? It's

26:41

a big question, I'll answer it. Sorry,

26:43

lots of different parts of that one.

26:45

Exactly. Now, I think there's two things.

26:49

First, it's from a business operation side,

26:51

and I think the more the payment

26:53

service provider is a simple

26:55

tool on which merchants can rely in

27:01

order to help them manage their funds.

27:05

And I think that a lot of what

27:08

PSPs are doing now is becoming just

27:10

really just a better tool within

27:12

their accounting and their finance departments

27:15

in order to help them enhance

27:17

how they manage their business. It's

27:20

also becoming more, what

27:22

we're seeing is that merchants are also using or

27:26

viewing payments as

27:29

essentially a data pool that

27:31

they're gonna use and utilize in order

27:33

to make business decisions, or at least

27:36

in order to better understand their business

27:38

and then make business decisions. And there's

27:40

definitely a trend here on

27:42

payment data. And

27:46

it did come from more sophisticated, bigger

27:48

merchants, but smaller merchants are looking at

27:50

it because essentially I think it's the

27:52

last pool of data that hasn't been

27:54

over utilized. And it's also a pool

27:56

of data that where we

27:58

haven't been able to, think capture

28:00

a large amount of the

28:03

value that is within the payment data. One

28:05

of the reasons obviously data protection and where

28:07

the data is stored and how you can

28:09

use it. But I think that there's definitely

28:11

a trend on payment data, which merchants

28:14

own, and there's definitely a will

28:16

to use that better to better

28:19

understand their business, make better businesses

28:21

and better understand the consumer. Lindsay,

28:24

you are nodding furiously, which the listeners won't

28:26

be able to see, but I'm guessing you've

28:28

got things to add. Yeah, absolutely.

28:30

I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to

28:33

kind of go to the small business perspective

28:35

for a moment, right? Cause a lot of,

28:37

a lot of my energy is really trying

28:39

to understand what are the needs of those

28:41

merchants so that the work that we're all

28:44

doing together is making their lives easier. So

28:46

I hear a lot about their pain points,

28:48

right? So we know that they're really under

28:50

pressure that they're finding it tough to focus

28:52

on customer acquisition. They're finding it tough to

28:55

run their businesses. They're finding it tough to

28:57

comply with the regulation and the tax requirements

28:59

that they have locally. They're finding it tough

29:01

to be dealing cross border and to know

29:03

what's required in that they're finding it tough

29:06

to be able to really understand how can

29:08

they protect themselves against fraud and ensure that

29:10

what they're doing is secure in their growing

29:12

their business. So it is hard.

29:15

Now in France, we know that 48%

29:17

of small businesses are using an econ

29:19

platform. So we're seeing a, an adoption

29:22

of the services that are really in

29:24

place to help them, um,

29:26

and they are beginning to really engage with

29:28

digital payments, but they also, you know, have

29:31

a lot of, of wishes as to how

29:33

they can improve. So, you know, we've, we,

29:35

we asked French small businesses in a survey

29:37

recently around what was really important for them

29:40

technically in a payments offering. And that might

29:42

be helpful. Just a bit of context here,

29:44

you know, 74% said fraud and security tools

29:46

were critically important. 78% said

29:49

same day settlements. So they also want,

29:51

you know, payments to be ensuring that

29:53

their working capital is, is, you know,

29:55

not affected. And they can also

29:58

have lending solutions that are going to. be

30:00

helping them to leverage

30:03

the trust that they have with their

30:05

banks, with their payments providers to help

30:07

them move through those periods. So

30:09

I think our responsibility in the

30:12

industry is to ensure that we're developing

30:14

solutions that will absolutely make life easier,

30:16

but we're really doing that, taking into

30:18

consideration the complex needs that they have,

30:20

and then being able to distribute them,

30:22

because that's the tough thing at the

30:24

end of the day. There

30:26

are almost 5 million small businesses in

30:28

France, ensuring that we can get this

30:30

technology, this capability to them in the

30:32

place where they do business in a

30:34

way that works for them, that they

30:37

can understand without maybe having to have

30:39

the technical knowledge. That's the piece

30:41

that we're all trying to solve for. Yeah,

30:43

for sure. And so

30:45

turning back to the experience itself now,

30:47

we've talked a little bit at the

30:49

start around the French market, how the

30:52

online presence is so huge, how card

30:54

payments are really, they're a

30:56

dominant method of payment. So how do

30:58

we make those online card payments more

31:00

appealing? I mean, obviously SMEs know that

31:02

they're important, but how can we make

31:05

the experience more appealing to both the

31:07

SMEs and their customers and provide that

31:09

all around better payment experience, especially in

31:11

a market historically risk and change averse.

31:14

So Amand, is there

31:16

something that acquirers can do on their own,

31:18

or does this have to be all across

31:20

the board? Well,

31:22

I think

31:25

that the French market regarding SMEs, there

31:29

is a risk aversion and limited access

31:33

to capital. So sometimes

31:35

it's difficult for SMEs to

31:37

secure funding for advanced e-commerce

31:40

solutions. What we

31:42

can see as well is that because

31:45

of traditional banking services, the

31:48

fees can be high and the cost can be

31:50

high for SMEs. So

31:53

it can be expensive for them to integrate

31:56

new payment technologies and upgrade the systems. that

32:00

they could use in order to improve their

32:03

payment and their e-commerce

32:05

solutions. So I think

32:08

that what we, to address

32:10

these brokers, there

32:14

is an effort which is required from

32:16

the whole ecosystem, banks,

32:18

payment providers and regulatory

32:21

bodies in

32:23

order to create

32:26

a context that will

32:29

make more accessible and affordable digital

32:31

solutions for SMEs. George?

32:35

Yeah, I wanted to bounce away because

32:37

you said, obviously, SMEs are, they

32:39

are risk averse and they are, I would

32:41

say, averse to change, but I would nuance

32:43

that a little bit. And

32:46

a lot of people think that in France, people

32:48

are averse to change, but reality is if you

32:50

look at the market, there is a massive push

32:53

from the user. So if

32:55

you look at the payment methods and you look

32:57

at the wallets and you

32:59

look at the contact lists and you look at everything, actually

33:01

France is massively open to change. And

33:03

if you look at the penetration of these new

33:05

method of payments, they're actually

33:07

very good. And

33:10

that is pushing the SMEs and the merchants

33:13

to make change and to adopt new

33:15

payment methods. And so I think, I agree

33:19

with your statement, but I also

33:22

think that the market structure is

33:24

pushing merchants to change and

33:26

is pushing payment service providers like

33:28

us to provide these new ways

33:31

of payments and because that's what

33:33

the consumer wants. And bottom line,

33:35

they're the ones that

33:37

are using these credit cards. Yeah.

33:41

Okay, so we're talking about all

33:43

of these solutions and trying to make the

33:46

payments experience a lot easier. Now there is

33:48

a flip side to this because what we're

33:50

talking about with enabling payments is we're talking

33:52

about enabling people to buy, pushing

33:54

consumerism to a certain extent. Is

33:56

there a point where we're going a little bit too

33:59

far with the...