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As real-time payment rails expand geographically, there’s an underlying infrastructure that allows payments to be paid to anyone at anytime, anywhere. These payments can be account-to-account (e.g., VocaLink and debit cards) or with underlying credit approval (e.g., Visa and Mastercard). The movement of money, once the preserve of banks, is now open to more lightly regulated companies, such as PayPal. Competition, aided and abetted by Open Banking and PSD2, will become much more active across banking services.
Here’s how a variety of ecosystem players will be impacted:
International payments were once complex and costly. Retail banks had special international departments that charge 10 to 20 times the cost of a domestic payment and were expensive to maintain. Banks themselves can use the new consolidated payment rails to provide a cheaper, transparent and easy-to-use service for clients. Nonbank competition (e.g., Fintechs such as Transferwise) are entering the space using the new payment rail infrastructure.
The banks have to decide on which internal, international infrastructure it now needs itself. All currencies have to be cleared and settled in their own country. Each country has a set of rules, and the existing corresponding banking system is in decline. Correspondent banking went from the predominant model for global coverage to one that’s being made to look archaic with the new technologies. This is a big benefit for the corporates, as they now can, with certainty, know the amount of money being sent and its arrival.
It’s no secret that merchants dislike this situation, but currently, they’ve got little choice given the vested interests of the parties in the card payment chain and the near universal acceptance of cards. However, the growing availability of account-to-account, real-time interbank payment services means that the combination of inventive Fintechs and merchant pressure will eventually lead to alternative payment methods circumventing the card rails and intermediary players in that method.
The advantages to merchants are clear: With fewer intermediaries in the payments process, there will be a significant cost savings for merchants. The potential for real-time settlement of transactions will improve their cash flow and help their working capital. The consequences for the card schemes will be loss of revenue and transaction volume. Perhaps this explains the interest in Visa and Mastercard in Earthport, VocaLink and others.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Sonali Patil Cloud Solution Architect at TCS
20 December
Retired Member
Andrew Ducker Payments Consulting at Icon Solutions
19 December
Jamel Derdour CMO at Transact365 / Nucleus365
17 December
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