Fast ride across the payments landscape

Breaking Payments is back, today going deep on the growth and M&A process for SMBs.

This article is based on the episode BBE 152, hosted by Matteo Rizzi (executive producer of the podcast) with an exceptional guest Jean Christian Mies (general manager of Americas, PPRO).

This episode is powered by PPRO, globalizes payment platforms for businesses so they can offer more choices at the checkout and boost sales. Payment service providers, enterprises, and banks that run on their infrastructure are able to launch payment methods faster, optimize checkout conversions, and reduce the complexities of managing multiple fund flows.

Jean Mies has a cultural diversity background, with European roots. He was born and raised in Brazil. It is in the payments industry for 20 years. He worked in WU, Adyen, and now in PPRO for a year and a half.

The sour episode with the guest's thoughts on the topic of embedded finance. Payment companies are increasingly focusing on financial and embedded services for consumers and businesses. In the past, companies sought funding to grow quickly; now funding is closely tied to the path to profitability.

Jean then reports on her past experience at Western Union, which was one of the first players in cross-border payments. Now micropayments can potentially be profitable, and Jean has seen these two phases: WU is very traditional, today cross-border payments and wire transfers are very cheap, and the scenario has completely changed. Emerging markets play a crucial role in this transaction because they are big markets with great potential. Also, e-commerce has driven the growth of wire transfers because now people want to pay abroad easily.A combination of digitalization and migration is another key to the development of the cross payments system and start-ups that do that. Now, travel is cheaper, and more and more people change their countries to find new opportunities. In addition, with the level of technology that we have, people can work wherever they want.?

Europe and Latin America:

The guest then tells us about the growth of Latin America thanks to Covid19. Latin America is a conglomerate market where people pay in cash and local currency. In recent decades, e-commerce has grown faster than in other major markets such as Asia, and this has changed people's mindset. They have been forced to use electronic payments, and this has also led to inclusion in countries like Brazil. Now many people are connected to a bank account, whereas a few years ago this was not possible. Brazil and Mexico are leading the adoption of electronic payments and innovation in this segment.

The new payment methods are possible because of high banking concentration and the involvement of regulators who ensure the competitiveness of the industry.

Finally, a zoom on orchestration, which becomes increasingly relevant in a situation where companies have to choose between partners and external vendors.? PPRO already has a large ecosystem of partners in the orchestration ecosystem and can provide solutions globally.

The episode is concluded by a prediction: Jean believe that technology is more important than big data for the grow of the company and also the financial inclusion is necessary to grow.

?

?By Giovanni Scandroglio