Why and How to Modify Your Payments Setup Post Covid-19

Payment trends have changed post the coronavirus pandemic. How to adapt or modify your payment setup that caters to the changing financial landscape.

Covid-19 has disrupted nearly all industries. At least 60 percent of business processes have changed in adjustment to the post-pandemic environment. In the context of the payments industry, covid-19 has reduced consumer spending, pushed economies to the edges of recession, and decreased global trade. These negative implications of the pandemic have resulted in low transaction volumes and directly impacted the payments industry.

The outset of vaccination drives and receding infection numbers is driving the pre-covid-19 momentum. As a result of which most industries are in an upward recovery phase. These industries include on-demand travel, ride-sharing, lodging(or Airbnb), ride-hailing, and car rentals. The recovery phase of such businesses is gaining high momentum and should be fast-tracked by efficient business processes. This article focuses on how to modify payment setups post-Covid -19.

Businesses should follow guidelines when evaluating whether to tweak or completely transform their payment systems. This will help them understand any challenges incurred in past years that might present themselves post-covid. Here are factors to consider when assessing your business’s payment stack:

1. Can the existing payment stack support rapidly increasing transaction traffic?

The recovery phase of any economy is characterized by surging transaction volumes. Payment mechanisms must be robust to handle such volumes without the risk of breaking down. Downtime or crashing of a payment system could lead to huge losses in income and might end up costing the business more money. It is also essential for the business to put a backup payment provider in place in case things go south.

2. Is the existing payment stack compliant with PSD2?

PSD2 or the Payment Services Directive 2 is a framework meant to overseas safe and innovative payment services across the European Union. Partnering with PSD2-compliant payment partners will put you and your business on the safe side of regulations. This is also a quality check and can help gauge the quality of your payment partners. Failure to work with compliant partners could lead to loss of transaction, and poor quality checkout that would ultimately bleed customers from your business.

3. Can the payment stack cater to an open, diverse, and broad demographic of customers that cut across diverse geographical locations?

An efficient payment system in the post-pandemic environment must consider the shifting workplace, changing business systems e.t.c The payment system must provide customers with a smooth, frictionless user experience and should go on to establish a global presence. Additionally, the payment system must reflect the diversity of technology, from mobile payments, and cryptocurrencies to even online wallets

4. How robust is the payment system?

The best payment processor is frictionless, charges the least fees, and has the highest conversion rates. It is worthwhile that business transactions take place within such a system. So ask yourself whether your payment processor is robust to handle volumes of transactions. Whether it can face downtime? Look at the underlying technology and establish whether it is solid enough to support fast and convenient transactions.

Rethinking your business payment set up according to the above guidelines

Putting all the above considerations into the context of your business environment will shape how you intend to build your payment processes in the covid era. A thorough understanding of the changing payment landscape is also crucial. The structures you put in place will shape the convenience of your business in months and years to come. It is worth noting the changing use of paper money and the shift to cashless economies. More businesses and customers prefer digital cashless payments, and the use of cash has already declined. Attempts by financial institutions to sterilize cash and eliminate the virus have all been in vain.

The plummet in cash usage is represented by 50%, and the gap between cash and digital payments keeps increasing.

In response to this, banks in China have put a simple eCommerce infrastructure for small-scale business to service their clients remotely. The idea is to combine online businesses with easy, customer-focused payment options. Other countries where the method is working include Italy and Germany. Other things to consider indirectly affecting payments include a shift by corporates from global supply chains to local alternatives. This is going to accommodate simplified local payment mechanisms.

On the other hand, many banks are waiving transaction fees and providing tenor-of-trade financing. Businesses can also adopt this method in retail payments. For example, Kenya and Ghana’s mobile payment providers waived at least 10 percent of transaction fees in business payments. Ghana went a step ahead to ease out KYC and AML requirements to ensure all restrictions to doing business through digital payments are eliminated.

Remittance businesses are also transitioning to alternative cash payouts when sending or receiving cash. Over-the-counter remittance services remained closed for the better part of the economic reboot due to low activities. The result has also been many underutilized ATM networks by the remittance counters.

Conclusion

Your payment processes should also be reflective of the changing needs of consumers. Do not offer solutions to past problems but endeavor to explore new frontiers and create new demand. New priorities have emerged across consumer markets, and the priorities of your business should change too. Build a simple, smooth, and fluid payment system to power your business in the post-pandemic period.

About XanPay

XanPay is your tool for expanding your business opportunities on a global scale without any hassles, all the while providing the best services to your customers. Its unique C2C routing technology enables easy processing of cross-border transactions in a much more efficient and affordable way. Moreover, we leverage our network of digital currency liquidity providers to enable payments between payment service providers (PSP), merchants, and their customers.