As Ecommpay prepares to tackle the main challenges for merchants this year through continued innovation in our payment technologies, we're proud to introduce the latest member of our team, Chief Revenue Officer Moshe Winegarten.
In a tough economic climate, payment challenges for eCommerce merchants are creating renewed interest in specialist solutions, especially in local markets. Moshe's extensive experience will help us to find better solutions for our partners, increase conversion rates and boost revenue.
Today, we're sitting down for a chat with Moshe to hear more about his future role and draw upon his considerable experience to help readers understand what the future holds for 2023 and beyond.
Continuing a Journey of Innovation and Development
Moshe, could you tell us a little about your career history before joining the Ecommpay team?
I've been in payments for just over 16 years, predominantly in product strategy and consulting, and I've worked for companies such as Barclaycard, Accenture, Visa and, more recently, checkout.com.
My career highlights include working on the first contactless credit card that was compatible with TfL's Oyster scheme. I also led product commercialisation of Visa Direct across Europe, grew the team at checkout.com, and won some major clients, including Sainsbury's supermarkets.
What attracted you to the company?
Few companies offer a full-stack solution like Ecommpay, and their expertise puts them in the next generation of payment service providers. The company has managed not only to build a very sophisticated platform but also to maintain its agility.
The team has continued to demonstrate innovation, from adding alternative payment methods at scale to building a bespoke Open Banking solution. Meanwhile, developers have created client interfaces for API-first solutions that rival those of dedicated SaaS providers.
Finally, I should also mention that it takes great focus for a company to bootstrap and grow steadily over a ten-year period without external funding. Ecommpay remains founder-led and founder-grown, which is why they can continue to grow and still be hiring in a difficult financial climate.
Few companies offer a full-stack solution like Ecommpay, and their expertise puts them in the next generation of payment service providers.
What goals and future plans do you have in your new role?
I think that people may come into a role such as Chief Revenue Officer with a predefined expectation of what a company's product is, but that expectation isn't always met. I've been incredibly fortunate that Ecommpay has a top-notch product offering which I'm excited to take to a wider audience.
My role will centre on scaling and building an expert sales and revenue team. I'll be focused on building a brand and getting the message out about what we can offer to the merchants whilst at the same time ensuring we continue on a trajectory of innovation and development.
Ecommpay already has many of the essential foundations in place, including a tremendous team of 350+ IT experts who support and constantly improve our own customisable and scalable payment infrastructure. Now, we'll be building up the revenue and marketing side and letting everyone know what we can deliver and the problems we can solve across a wide range of verticals, including eCommerce, travel, hospitality and fintech.
What will be your approach to that process?
I think education is an essential factor. A great deal of eCommerce businesses still work with separate acquirers, gateways and so forth. A full-stack provider like Ecommpay brings many benefits for merchants, from fast implementation of the latest security standards to adding innovative features and payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Open Banking and Buy Now, Pay Later.
Most of all, I think it's vital that the market understands how we can achieve better authorisation rates for submitted transactions while delivering a rich dataset of chargeback and client information from the card schemes.
The Current State of the Online Payment Landscape
What are modern eCommerce merchants looking for from a payment provider?
Providers have been offering "omnichannel solutions" for some time, but these days, the reality is that this isn't enough. Merchants now realise just how complex the online landscape can be and that they will need a specialist, dedicated eCommerce payment processor. Ecommpay is well positioned to ensure that merchants can offer customers the best checkout experiences with a range of payment methods for greater consumer choice.
Ultimately, a specialist provider like ourselves offers the best solution to help companies grow, increase online sales and solve all of the challenges that will inevitably arise along the way.
How can online and eCommerce businesses reduce their costs?
There are always ways that businesses can reduce costs. After Brexit, it's crucial to ensure that local processing and acquiring are in place. The transaction costs between EU cardholders and UK merchants and vice versa have all increased, so helping businesses to establish entities in both jurisdictions — and internationally — can help to optimise costs from a processing perspective.
Similarly, our gateway offers region-specific local payment methods and acquiring in various worldwide markets. Helping merchants to localise their businesses doesn't just reduce costs; it also helps to drive more revenue. The same is true when soft declines are reduced, as well as improving the overall customer journey and reducing checkout abandonment.
Helping merchants to localise their businesses doesn't just reduce costs; it also helps to drive more revenue.
As the UK deals with a cost-of-living crisis, are there still opportunities for success?
In the current UK climate, disposable incomes are down, and eCommerce expansion has plateaued since its accelerated growth during the height of COVID. In that kind of climate, it's essential for merchants to reduce their costs and convert as much of their traffic as possible in the ways I've already mentioned.
As each customer becomes more valuable, the focus on conversion becomes more important. Offering alternative payment methods and ways for shoppers to pay in instalments can have a big impact. However, by pairing with a payment provider who understands alternative local markets and their consumer behaviour, I still believe there is plenty of opportunity for businesses to grow and thrive, especially as many logistical issues surrounding Brexit begin to be solved.
What is the most common mistake you see eCommerce merchants making when it comes to payments?
Customers are becoming more demanding and always want to pay using the methods that make them feel the most comfortable, and the merchants that have been able to provide those options have thrived over the past couple of years. Yet, I've been surprised about the number of businesses that still don't offer payment methods such as Google Pay or Apple Pay, despite perhaps 80% of their clients using mobile devices to shop.
Of course, beyond the UK, every country has its own regional preferences. If you're not able to provide what consumers want, then there are three competitors who will. COVID, in particular, has forced more successful offline companies into the online space, and everyone's competing to give consumers what they want — whether that's a specific payment method or an improved checkout experience.
I've been surprised about the number of businesses that still don't offer payment methods such as Google Pay or Apple Pay.
Has the implementation of Open Banking helped the eCommerce sector?
Open Banking is slowly gaining traction, though it hasn't set the world alight in the way some of the early protagonists said it would. We're seeing a volume increase, and merchants continue asking for Open Banking solutions.
And how about payment orchestration?
Payment orchestration — connecting various payment service providers, acquirers, and banks on a single, unified software layer — is also something merchants are beginning to understand. Many businesses now can see the benefits and flexibility it brings and the resiliency it offers when entering new markets.
As far as the providers are concerned, the situation is similar to when insurance comparison websites became popular around 15 years ago. Some insurers refused to join the platforms as it put them in direct competition with their rivals, but they eventually realised they had to follow the market trend and join the bandwagon.
Do you think Buy Now, Pay Later schemes will retain their popularity over the coming years?
The Buy Now, Pay Later market won't grow at the rate it has over the last five years. Demand will remain, but companies offering the payment method must keep tightening regulations in mind and offer their products responsibly. Many of the early entrants into the space took advantage of cheap funding, and some are now struggling with liability risks.
I think the funding squeeze, combined with incoming regulation, will help to avoid a bubble in the BNPL space. The industry will end up smaller, more tightly controlled, but ultimately stronger.
In the future, BNPL providers will need to ensure consumers can afford the loans on offer, while also remaining profitable. Specific verticals will prove more appropriate for BNPL use, such as travel. However, it will be important for providers to understand the industry they are targeting — and its consumers — to properly ascertain the risks involved.
Do you think cryptocurrencies still have a future, despite the losses of 2022?
I think it's best for us to think about cryptocurrencies as another payment method rather than an entirely separate financial concept. If we think about Open Banking's position a few years ago, it wasn't fully ready, yet today, a number of clients and businesses that I speak to are interested in understanding the technology or are keen to experiment. This is precisely how we should think of crypto: businesses should be able to try out the proof of concept or test to see whether it drives traffic.
Ultimately, businesses want a payment partner who can help them to future-proof their payment offering, so they're ready for developments three to five years down the line. We don't know what the future of crypto will look like, though it will undoubtedly evolve — perhaps taking the form of central bank digital currencies, backed by the Bank of England, for example. It's certainly a shifting landscape, so having the tools in place to be ready to capitalise is important.
Businesses want a payment partner who can help them to future-proof their payment offering, so they're ready for developments three to five years down the line.
ChatGPT has recently put AI in the spotlight. Do you foresee AI technology improving payment processing?
From a payment processing perspective, the growth of AI will undoubtedly help with fraud monitoring, offering real-time optimisation of fraud rules and controls with immediate or even pre-emptive reaction times to thwart attacks.
The subject of AI is fascinating, and it's exciting to think about how it might be used to supercharge routing and retry strategies and create sophisticated optimisation for authorisation rates and things like that. The technology could also identify customers and present them with the best payment options based on location, credit history, and other individual needs.
Demand for digital-only banks is rising, what are your thoughts on this trend?
To grow successfully, digital-only banks need the right partners to support all of the current payment methods and transaction types — transferring funds and loading money from traditional banks, for example.
Digital-only banking is a really exciting space, however, and Ecommpay already works with schemes such as Visa and Mastercard, which have specialist transaction types built for this industry — account funding transactions, original credit transactions, all leveraging Mastercard Send and Visa Direct. We're ready for this trend today, and we're already seeing significant growth and lots of opportunities.
Finally Moshe, what’s your 2023 prognosis for the fintech sector?
I've spent my entire career in fintech, so of course I believe this is a dynamic and exciting industry. However, 2023 will definitely be a challenging year. Some companies have closed their doors, and others are seeking acquisition, while a great many are looking to stretch their current funding as far as possible. Even the ripples from the crypto winter are still being felt, so it will be interesting to see how the sector recovers.
Regarding the payments side of fintech, I think there are plenty of exciting opportunities for companies with solid balance sheets. I still see crypto being leveraged on the settlement side of things as a way of reducing costs, and there is plenty of innovation going on within the market in general.
Overall, the eCommerce sector is still growing, and there will be plenty of challenges to solve along the way. Much of the current fintech sector was born in the harshest economic climate — the 2008 financial crash — so I'm sure we'll see new businesses and technologies emerge driven by exceptional talent.
