The Global Paytech Market, 2017: Driving Transaction Transformation

Fintech companies are disrupting the traditional banking and financial services ecosystem by leveraging innovative technologies in order to provide value-added services. Paytech appears as the most exciting subsector of the Fintech industry. Indeed, most technology innovations are used to perform payment transactions in a disruptive way: faster, anywhere, anytime, and secured and delivered in real time. Start-ups are promoting new ways to perform payments by using mobile devices, cryptocurrencies, or cloud computing. As a result, disruption is rife and competition between market participants is intense. Furthermore, consumers are looking for new services and tangible value. This is particularly true for peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, but also for business-to-business (B2B) payments. Indeed, B2B activities demand solutions that can perform instant payments in a secure way with cross-border options and minimal fees. Instant payment systems are already in place in some countries, such as in China, India, and Brazil, while other regions are just implementing such strategy, including in Australia, the Single Euro Payments Area, and the United States.

The customer journey and user experience are strongly transforming digital commerce, resulting in an increasingly seamless and frictionless process. Payment integration is essential to succeed in this market transformation. New payment trends such as invisible payments (also called transparent payments) are increasingly visible, resulting in payments becoming a commodity. At the moment, many companies are competing in this space, each trying to find the best approach with services based on in-app payments, mobile wallet, APIs or Internet of Things devices.

Europe appears as an exciting region for the next 3 to 5 years as many initiatives will have an impact, including Payment Service Directive 2 and the General Data Protection Regulation. Regulation is a core driver for the space, as financial institutions will have to comply with local, regional, or global initiatives such as anti-money laundering. Regulation technology (Regtech) companies will have the chance to expand their footprints by providing automated or human augmented services based on machine learning algorithms coupled with Big Data analysis.

This report will answer the following questions:
- What are the recent evolutions in the Paytech ecosystem?
- How will regulation impact on Paytech potential?
- How are financial services organizations leveraging Paytech, and what are its impacts and outcomes?
- What are the key drivers for adopting Paytech solutions?
- What are the challenges that hamper the adoption of Paytech solutions and services across the financial services sector?