Omnichannel is so 2010

Ecommpay recently attended Money20/20 Europe, a three-day event where the biggest FinTech leaders convene to learn, network, collaborate and grow. During the show, Moshe Winegarten, Chief Revenue Officer at Ecommpay, was interviewed by Financial IT magazine on the topic “Omnichannel is so 2010”.

Moshe is a global payments expert with extensive experience in FinTech across consumer and commercial banking and payments, so he was only too happy to share his thoughts:

When we say ‘Omnichannel is so 2010,’ we are specifically referring to payments and payments providers. Servicing customers across all channels through a single omnichannel solution is extremely important - and more critical today than ever.

However, while omnichannel servicing is supercritical, trying to achieve this through a single service provider is somewhat outdated. Although it worked to some degree in 2010, in today's world, it's not relevant anymore.

In the last 14 years, there's been significant innovation and change, especially in the e-commerce landscape, with new payment methods emerging through new security standards and regulations, coupled with further globalisation, requiring local payment methods within each market. These changes have made it increasingly more challenging for a payment provider to provide the omnichannel solution businesses need to service their customers.

For example, in 2010, before the take up of Google Pay and ApplePay, if an individual shopped online and entered their card details, then went on to physically shop in-store, they could potentially be identified via their card. But today, if somebody shops in-store using their phone, they simply tap with ApplePay; similarly, when they purchase online, they pay with ApplePay from their laptop; in this scenario, merchants won't be able to link those two details, because there are different tokens associated with it.

We have also seen Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) increase in popularity. So now, for example, if somebody pays online with Klarna or PayPal pay later and then comes in-store (where those online options aren't available), they will be paying with a card instead. In those circumstances, there's no way to link those two transactions and identify the individual as a single customer to service them in that way. As a result, the belief that as a business or merchant, you need a single omnichannel payment provider to service your customers is indeed ‘so 2010’ - and today, you need a better approach.

Ecommpay has a laser focus on e-commerce. We currently leave point-of-sale, physical bricks-and-mortar payments to the specialists in that space; it's a very stable environment. However, significant change and innovation are occurring at a very high pace within the e-commerce space.

We are aware - and our clients tell us - of the need for continuous changes and updates, as well as different standards, features, functionality, and payment methods within this space. By specialising in this, we know we can be the best for e-commerce and ensure our clients are using the bricks-and-mortar provider most suited to their needs. Together, we can then enable the payments for businesses across every channel they need, allowing them to link that together with their own omnichannel solution for servicing.

Traditionally, payments, and the different parts of the payments value chain, have been owned by different divisions within a company. For example, the acquiring relationship might be owned by the finance team, while the gateway relationship might be owned by the e-commerce team or the product team; however, if you want to provide the best payment experience for e-commerce, a lot of the time you need a full stack payment provider - like Ecommpay. After all, we are an acquirer and a gateway a processor all in one. So, the number one challenge is getting all those teams across a business to align and recognise the reason for doing so.

There's also the belief that the economy of scale of having an omnichannel provider for all your business makes it more viable. As a result of the regulation changes in Europe, specialist providers like Ecommpay can focus on online payments as a director acquirer, offering the same cost-effectiveness as a ‘traditional’ omnichannel provider.

Similarly, in terms of reporting and reconciliation, there are ways to merge these two elements together. So, aside from having a single omnichannel provider, a lot of the reporting for both the e-commerce and the bricks-and-mortar businesses is managed and controlled separately, which aligns very well within that space for clients.

There’s so much we want to do. We're expanding into North America and Canada and, later on, at the beginning of next year into the Middle East, Turkey, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.

Beyond that, we’ll be focusing on marketplaces where we see massive complexity within the e-commerce space.

Watch the full interview here.