Paul Schulte, Advisor, Banking and Financial Services
August 22nd, 2019
Paul Schulte is the Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research based in Singapore. Paul's roles[...]
Global payments: Expansive growth, targeted opportunities
McKinsey&Company | Oct 2018
Robust growth makes payments a dynamic sector for incumbents—and a draw for new competitors.
Global payments revenues swelled to $1.9 trillion in 2017, the best single year of growth in the last five years (Exhibit 1). In last year’s report, we forecast that payments would become a $2 trillion business by 2020. Indeed, 2017’s market performance was so robust—its 11 percent growth rate fueled by continuing strength in the Asia–Pacific corridor—that global revenues are poised to surpass that $2 trillion threshold in 2018, and to approach $3 trillion within five years.
This rapid growth makes payments an expanding and increasingly important component of the broader banking industry. After an extended period in which payments generated roughly 30 percent of overall banking revenues, this metric has turned sharply upward. The continued prominence of payments in banking revenues might come as a surprise, given the continued pressure on payments fees—increasing competition and regulatory pressure—and ongoing low-interest-rate environments in many developed economies. In contrast, the trend makes sense, given healthy underlying fundamentals, including electronic-transaction and digital-commerce growth, and increasing cross-border activity. The growth of the payments component also points to the imperative for financial institutions to develop and continually refresh sound payments strategies to remain competitive in a market being reshaped by technology, new competition, and customer demands.
Not surprisingly, global payments revenue growth is dominated by the Asia–Pacific region, as has been the case for several years. At more than $900 billion, the region now accounts for nearly half of global payments revenue—compared with less than a quarter just six years earlier—as well as four-fifths of recent growth (Exhibit 2).
Remarkably, double-digit growth has continued even as the base of business has grown. The 20 percent growth rate for 2017, driven largely by liquidity factors, was Asia–Pacific’s strongest ever. Although our forecast calls for inevitable moderation, revenues in the region should continue to grow at low double-digit rates over the next five years, still considerably faster than any other region.
See: Large Global Payments Processor Unveils Airdropping Campaign Among Users
Latin America’s payments sector has been the fastest-growing among the major regions in the recent past (albeit off the smallest revenue pool); but growth rates flatlined abruptly in 2017. We expect the region to return to average annual growth of 8 percent over the next five years, second only to Asia–Pacific. While several Latin American countries continued to deliver double-digit growth in 2017, Brazil’s payments sector—the region’s dominant revenue engine—was hampered by regulatory action targeting credit-card rates (Latin America is reliant on interest for two-thirds of its card revenues). Credit-card annual percentage rates (APRs) in Brazil fell by more than 60 percentage points as a result of actions restricting the duration of high-cost revolving credit lines. The plan is expected to reduce delinquency rates but will also reduce average APRs, which remain among the world’s highest. Latin America’s underlying fundamentals remain solid, particularly for domestic payments.
Revenues in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) were similarly near flat, continuing a trend that has persisted for the past decade. The developing nations of Africa and Eastern Europe have generated high single-digit growth, offsetting nominal declines in Western Europe. Fee revenues have been the primary factor in the growth that has occurred, while a persistent environment of low interest rates—reaching negative levels in some cases—acts as a drag on growth. A return to a stable rate environment combined with continued transaction growth will result in revenue growth in the middle single digits for Western Europe until 2022, while Africa and Eastern Europe are likely to continue at their present pace. At the same time, individual companies in the European payments arena, such as Adyen and Wirecard, are finding growth areas that lead to substantial valuations.
On the surface, cross-border payments might appear to comprise a low single-digit share of global payments revenues. However, once liquidity factors such as net interest margins are excluded—as many institutions do in analyzing their own payments P&Ls—this growing category of transactions account for a larger share (roughly one-quarter) despite increasing competition from new entrants and solutions. Cross-border transactions also continue to generate unusually high margins for payments products and serve as a foundation for a broader array of client services.
After a period of tepid results, following the financial crisis, North America’s overall payments revenue growth returned to a healthy 7 percent in 2017, and is poised to continue at a similar pace over a five-year horizon. Credit cards comprise more than half of North American payments revenues, far more than any other geography, and will continue to grow faster than other products. More surprising is that the drag on North American revenue growth, from the temporary slowdown in credit-card usage following the financial crisis, has only recently lifted.
The jump in global revenues in 2017 is a direct reflection of an improved global economic scenario, reinforcing the close link between growth in GDP and payments revenue. According to World Bank data, in 2017, global nominal GDP grew at 6.0 percent year over year, compared with 1.5 percent in 2016. During the same periods, payments revenue increased in similar proportions, from 7 percent in 2016 to 11 percent in 2017.
See: Meet the fintech entrepreneur who thinks payments are boring
Comparing payments revenues across regions, we observe that payments revenue per unit of GDP (a measure of the cost of payments for consumers and businesses) in Asia–Pacific and Latin America is 50 to 60 percent higher than for Europe and North America. In addition, the share of electronic payments transactions in Asia–Pacific and Latin America is 60 to 65 percent lower than in Europe and North America. In other words, payments are significantly costlier for the economy in Asia–Pacific and Latin America, because the cost of processing cash and check payments is higher, as are the fees paid by consumers and businesses.
Transaction dynamics remain strong
Although the strong recent growth in global payments revenue has been broad-based and diverse, an increasing share is related to transactions. This is a positive development for banks and payments providers, as transaction revenues are more predictable and sustainable, and more readily controlled by financial-services firms. Transaction-based revenue now accounts for 40 percent of global payments revenue, up from 37 percent in 2012. We expect this share to grow to 46 percent by 2022, even in an improving rate scenario.
More specifically, while the overall number of transactions continues to increase, the true revenue driver is the electronification of transactions—namely, away from cash—which more than offsets the downward pressure on fees (Exhibit 3). Over the past five years, the share of the world’s transactions carried out in cash has fallen from 89 to 77 percent. At the same time, the share of combined debit- and credit-card use has nearly doubled, from 5 to 9 percent. The decline of cash usage globally is expected to be even more pronounced over the next five years, due to an increasing range of payments options, the push toward real-time payments, the growth of digital commerce, and continued regulatory focus on payments electronification.
Given that the Asia–Pacific region accounts for more than 60 percent of the world’s population, it is not surprising that it is responsible for two-thirds of global transactions. The fact that Asia–Pacific still lags behind other regions in overall electronification at only 21 percent (despite more than doubling since 2012) illustrates the region’s ongoing growth potential. The move away from cash, as witnessed in markets such as China, will serve as the single-largest cause of global electronification. The share of electronification in China has increased more than tenfold over the last five years, from 4 percent in 2012 to 34 percent in 2017.
See: Singapore consortium claims breakthrough in DLT payments project
Meanwhile, North America has become the first region to execute more than half of its transactions electronically. At 450 electronic transactions annually per capita, it far and away leads other regions on this dimension. Meanwhile, individual European countries, such as Sweden and Norway, are executing no more than 20 percent of their transactions in cash, while generating 520 noncash transactions per capita per year.
The shifting digital landscape
The growing popularity of alternative payments solutions, and digital commerce in general, further contributes to the electronification trend. Global digital commerce volume exceeded $3 trillion in 2017 and will more than double by 2022. Asia–Pacific already comprises more than half of this $3 trillion and, due to the fast-growing Chinese market, will increase its share to nearly 70 percent by 2022. Mobile commerce, including in-app payments and mobile browser payments, is the dominant factor driving strong digital commerce growth, due to rising smartphone adoption, an increasing shift toward online shopping, and improvements in network bandwidth. Mobile commerce accounts for 48 percent of digital-commerce sales globally as of 2017, and is forecasted to reach 70 percent by 2022 (tripling to $4.6 trillion).
Consumers and merchants alike are increasingly embracing app-based commerce and in-app payments, with retailers ramping up investments in mobile apps with innovative use cases to provide omnichannel shopping experiences for customers. Globally, mobile apps accounted for more than 30 percent of total digital-commerce volume in 2017, and they are expected to continue strong growth across all regions (Exhibit 4). Digital wallets are estimated to have added approximately 40 billion to global payments revenues in 2017.
The outlook for in-store commerce varies significantly by country and region: in countries with near-field-communication infrastructure, tap-and-pay will drive growth; in the United States, in-store app use will grow as consumer use of order-ahead increases; and in emerging markets, the introduction of new payments solutions will influence how people pay. In the United States, in-person use of digital wallets will increase at a 45 percent compound annual growth rate to reach nearly $400 billion in annual flows by 2022. Although most of this growth is expected to be on “pass through” wallets like Apple Pay, private-label wallets such as Starbucks and Walmart Pay—both of which have enjoyed impressive early adoption—will also continue to increase in popularity. Even with these gains, however, digital wallets will comprise less than 10 percent of US consumer in-person point-of-sale payments in 2022. Lack of ubiquitous merchant acceptance will remain a barrier, along with the continued percentage of consumers who do not know how to use their mobile phone to pay at the point of sale.
See: The lending revolution: How digital credit is changing banks from the inside
In the United Kingdom, a total of 38 million contactless transactions were conducted using a mobile device in 2016 (representing roughly $358 million in spending). While this is significant in absolute value, it accounts for only 1.2 percent of in-store payments, indicating a huge opportunity for growth. China leads on this front with 40 percent of in-person spending already on mobile digital wallets. However, unlike the United States, almost all of this is on closed-loop systems like Alipay and WeChat Pay. China’s ratio is projected to continue to increase to nearly 60 percent by 2022. Within the same region, Japan remains a largely untapped market. Research has found that close to 70 percent of Japanese consumers across all age groups still prefer to use cash when making in-store purchases, mainly due to security concerns with mobile payments. It is interesting to note, however, that despite the preference for cash, prepaid-card solutions like Suica have found high adoption in Japan. In the third section of this report, we look in more depth at the digital landscape.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Decrypt | Andrew Hayward | May 27, 2020 First came CryptoKitties, and now Dapper Labs is launching a licensed hoops game with potentially massive mainstream appeal In brief NBA Top Shot, a blockchain-based collectibles game, is lauching in closed beta. The licensed game is developed by Dapper Labs, the studio behind CryptoKitties. Top Shot features tokenized NBA highlights and also pairs with a mobile hoops game. CryptoKitties developer Dapper Labs is going big for its latest project: NBA Top Shot, an officially licensed, blockchain-driven collectible game featuring tokenized highlights from basketball’s greatest stars. See: How the Pandemic Is Pushing Blockchain Forward It will be available to play next week, at least to those who registered interest and receive an invitation to the soon-to-be-released closed beta test. “What Top Shot does is it allows fans to buy a piece of the on-court action, actually own it, and then be able to sell it,” Dapper Labs VP of Marketing and Partnerships Caty Tedman told Decrypt. “It creates a new economy around the sport that’s never existed before that we’re particularly excited about.” The tokenized moments arrive as interactive “snapshots of a moment in time,” explained Tedman. They’re multi-faceted, animated widgets of sorts ...
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Sifted | Tim Smith | May 26, 2020 As coronavirus has forced classrooms around the world to move online, kids are getting creative in trying to sabotage lessons Georgina Farnham, a Barcelona-based English literature and language teacher, was just getting used to the transition to online teaching when, one day, she thought the internet trolls had parked their tanks on her lawn. Farnham was making use of Kahoot!, the Norwegian educational games app, when the sabotage struck. “We were playing a game and it kept just crashing and not giving kids time to answer the questions, and on the leader board, all of these ridiculous names that hadn’t been entered into the game as players were coming up: ‘gayboy27’, ‘Covid-19’ — offensive names,” she explains. See: 58 Must-Read Remote Work Resources | 50 Great Remote Working Resources The kids said it was nothing to do with them, and Farnham got worried: “I thought someone had hacked into our game and was watching us, and I was worried for our cyber security.” Farnham quickly contacted the Kahoot! customer service team to find out what was going on. But the culprits, as it turned out, were closer to home than she had ...
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Greater Capitalism: How the pandemic is currently reshaping America’s economic system for the better
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Decrypt | Andrew Hayward | May 27, 2020 First came CryptoKitties, and now Dapper Labs is launching a licensed hoops game with potentially massive mainstream appeal In brief NBA Top Shot, a blockchain-based collectibles game, is lauching in closed beta. The licensed game is developed by Dapper Labs, the studio behind CryptoKitties. Top Shot features tokenized NBA highlights and also pairs with a mobile hoops game. CryptoKitties developer Dapper Labs is going big for its latest project: NBA Top Shot, an officially licensed, blockchain-driven collectible game featuring tokenized highlights from basketball’s greatest stars. See: How the Pandemic Is Pushing Blockchain Forward It will be available to play next week, at least to those who registered interest and receive an invitation to the soon-to-be-released closed beta test. “What Top Shot does is it allows fans to buy a piece of the on-court action, actually own it, and then be able to sell it,” Dapper Labs VP of Marketing and Partnerships Caty Tedman told Decrypt. “It creates a new economy around the sport that’s never existed before that we’re particularly excited about.” The tokenized moments arrive as interactive “snapshots of a moment in time,” explained Tedman. They’re multi-faceted, animated widgets of sorts ...
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Raconteur | Marylou Costa | May 28, 2020 Often seen as a nice-to-have, workplace learning and professional development are now gaining importance as organisations’ best shot at retaining happy staff and staying competitive The idea of working from home may conjure up images of dishevelled, tracksuited executives. But the home has actually become the epicentre of a reskilling revolution that may just save businesses from a coronavirus-induced collapse. Corporate learning providers such as LinkedIn Learning, Circus Street and Hive Learning are all reporting a spike in usage, as an overwhelming array of new business challenges puts pressure on teams to embrace remote training methods and professional development. On LinkedIn Learning, more than four million hours of content was consumed globally in March alone. Hive Learning has seen a 20 per cent increase in logins since lockdown began Circus Street has noted not just a 64 per cent increase in weekday learning, but an unprecedented 500 per cent increase on Saturdays Skills gaps that the World Economic Forum had already outlined a need to bridge, such as digital and data literacy, have now become unnegotiable. Meanwhile ecommerce and digital marketing tactics like search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising have risen to ...
Read More
Read More
Forbes | Glenda Toma | May 28, 2020 Last December, language-learning app Duolingo surpassed the $1 billion valuation mark, becoming the fifth company on last year’s Next Billion-Dollar Startups list to do so. “Once we closed the funding round, a few of us early employees went for drinks and we just remembered all the early days where we had no idea where we were going to go, and we had no idea if this was even going to work out,” Duolingo CEO and cofounder Luis van Ahn tells Forbes in a video interview. Not only did it work out, but Duolingo has been among the companies that have been gaining during the coronavirus pandemic as bored Americans take to learning Spanish, French or the 34 other languages that it offers. Since Forbes published its 2019 Next Billion-Dollar Startups list last summer, 6 out of the 25 companies on the list, including design-software firm Figma, fintech Dave, e-commerce startup Grove Collaborative, as well as Duolingo, have reached a $1 billion valuation. Last December, language-learning app Duolingo surpassed the $1 billion valuation mark, becoming the fifth company on last year’s Next Billion-Dollar Startups list to do so. “Once we closed the funding round, ...
Read More
Read More
TFI and InvestHK | May 27 Toronto Finance International (TFI) would like to invite the Canadian FinTech ecosystem to join a presentation with InvestHK and RaceCapital to learn more about funding opportunities, new trends, and market entry to Asia in a post-COVID-19 world. Event Details Date: Thursday, June 11th, 2020 Time: 3:00pm to 4:15pm Location: Video Conference Speakers Chris Chen Head of Investment Promotion - Canada, InvestHK Michal Kaczmarzki Senior Manager, FinTech, InvestHK Edith Yeung General Partner, RaceCapital Agenda: - 3:05 - 3:30pm: Presentation: “Fundraising & governmental support for Fintechs entering Hong Kong” with Chris Chen, Head of Investment Promotion - Canada, InvestHK - 3:30pm-4:00pm: Discussion: Trends & opportunities in Hong Kong, in the post-COVID-19 era with Michal Kaczmarski, Senior Manager, Fintech, InvestHK, and Edith Yeung, General Partner, RaceCapital. Moderated by Chris Chen, Head of Investment Promotion - Canada, InvestHK Q&A to conclude. Register for this free event --> Now The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in ...
Read More
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NCFA Canada | Craig Asano | May 27, 2020 NCFA SUBMISSION TO CSA ON PROPOSED HARMONIZED RULES FOR START-UP SECURITIES CROWDFUNDING (NI 45-110) The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) are seeking comments on proposed harmonized rules for start-up securities crowdfunding by 27 May 2020. The National Crowdfunding and Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) welcomes this initiative. The following addresses the specifics of the proposed rules, but please see our previous submissions on crowdfunding in Canada on our website in the advocacy section for more details – https://ncfacanada.org/advocacy/. 1. Harmonization NCFA has argued for many years that CSA crowdfunding rules are unduly constraining, and this enhanced harmonization will enable a greater use of crowdfunding across Canada, help to fill a funding gap, and allow more retail investors to invest in businesses whose purpose they support. 2. Impact of the pandemic on fundraising Today, early stage Ventures are the most likely not to get funded as they lack established relationships with banks (including BDC) and they have been amongst the hardest hit by the pandemic. Many VC funds are moving towards growth equity (later stage) investing and foreign investors mainly invest at later stages. 3. Funding cap While the maximum total amount ...
Read More
Read More
Sifted | Tim Smith | May 26, 2020 As coronavirus has forced classrooms around the world to move online, kids are getting creative in trying to sabotage lessons Georgina Farnham, a Barcelona-based English literature and language teacher, was just getting used to the transition to online teaching when, one day, she thought the internet trolls had parked their tanks on her lawn. Farnham was making use of Kahoot!, the Norwegian educational games app, when the sabotage struck. “We were playing a game and it kept just crashing and not giving kids time to answer the questions, and on the leader board, all of these ridiculous names that hadn’t been entered into the game as players were coming up: ‘gayboy27’, ‘Covid-19’ — offensive names,” she explains. See: 58 Must-Read Remote Work Resources | 50 Great Remote Working Resources The kids said it was nothing to do with them, and Farnham got worried: “I thought someone had hacked into our game and was watching us, and I was worried for our cyber security.” Farnham quickly contacted the Kahoot! customer service team to find out what was going on. But the culprits, as it turned out, were closer to home than she had ...
Read More
Read More
Koho Release | Brittany Bell | May 27, 2020 TORONTO, May 27, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KOHO, Canada’s leading challenger bank, today announced it is piloting a new Early Payroll feature that will help those under financial strain pay their bills and make ends meet. KOHO’s Early Payroll pilot will grant users free access to $100 of their CERB payment before the scheduled payday. KOHO will not charge fees or interest. The company hopes this will provide a cushion that many Canadians could use right now to help pay bills and necessary expenses, and avoid harmful loan alternatives. “The economic impact of COVID was not equally distributed,” said Daniel Eberhard, Founder and CEO of KOHO. “A lot of lower and middle income Canadians are vulnerable right now. The KOHO team did an amazing job putting this together so quickly. We hope it helps.” In 2016 the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada released a report on payday loans that revealed the average cost of a $300 loan (for two weeks) is $63. That means 21% of the money you borrow is automatically eaten up by fees. See: Shopify Balance Brings Banking and Cash Flow to Merchants In March, KOHO partnered with ...
Read More
Read More
May 27, 2020 As real estate prices keep rising, the practice of crowdfunding your workplace — especially if you're independently funded — has never been more critical. When you crowdfund your workplace, you preserve your independence while also giving your workers and all interested stakeholders a better opportunity to mobilize and commit to the project. Community Mobilization As evidenced by the success of coworking space co.up, which has managed to crowdfund €7,950 to build a new top floor and renovate their current building, crowdfunding is an innovative and practical way to meet your business requirements for coworking space. It has demonstrated that workers and business owners can make use of the enthusiasm of workers and coworkers to "succeed through support of other communities already wishing to benefit from this extra space," according to Alex, the community manager. His confidence is understandable; Co.up was able to double its size thanks to crowdfunding. It may be easy to consider this feat as a one-off, but other projects have shown that it is possible to raise a significant amount of money by ensuring community participation in crowdfunding. See: SEC Gives Break on Crowdfunding Rules for Some Small Firms For example, organizations such as ...
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Greater Capitalism: How the pandemic is currently reshaping America’s economic system for the better
Forbes | Randall Lane | May 26, 2020 In a matter of weeks, Covid-19 spurred seismic shifts in how we work, learn and transact, and it helped usher in a new era that is smarter and fairer. The surreal year 2020 produces a personal Groundhog Day effect. The clock moves at one-quarter speed as the time-numbing diversions and necessities of a century ago, from jigsaw puzzles to yeast, fly off the virtual shelves. Simultaneously, though, the world is transforming at a pace unlike any experienced since World War II. In a matter of weeks, seismic, permanent shifts have occurred in how we work, learn and transact. The most significant shift is taking place in our economic system itself. See: OpEd: IT’S TIME TO BUILD Capitalism, the greatest engine for prosperity and innovation ever created, was already under strain before the coronavirus pandemic. Despite a decade of impressive economic growth and job creation, a plurality of Americans still reported feeling as though the system was rigged, that hard work and playing by the rules no longer ensured success. “It is scary when you had the lowest unemployment, the lowest African-American unemployment, the lowest Hispanic unemployment, the lowest women’s unemployment,” says Michael Milken, ...
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