Major Products Launch in June (I): PSPs Continue to Expand Crypto Offerings
Today, the payment market continues booming, as the global payments market size is expected to rise to $572.06 billion in 2022 from that of $511.87 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8% (statistics from The Business Research Company). This may be mainly fueled by the outbreak of Covid-19 since when people's preference for payment options has changed hugely and by fast-evolving digital technologies.
Intensified competition is therefore forcing payment sercice providers (PSPs) of all sizes to step up innovation and development of new offerings to consolidate existing market position and expand into new ones. In June, payment companies were jostling each other to launch new products to cater to customers' growing demands.
Let's first see that Stripe, an online payment processing platform, has introduced a delegated authentication feature in June to improve payment conversion rates in Europe. This move is in response to a new EU regulation - Strong Customer Authentication, which was fully rolled out this year to reduce payment fraud.
Westpac has launched Westpac DataX, a data analytics offering that will enable faster, data-backed decision making for its largest clients, along with a new technology - Tap on Phone, which will enable small businesses to accept payments from customers via their compatible Android mobile.
Visa has rolled out Latin America's first crypto cards, through partner companies in Brazil and Argentina, allowing users to receive Bitcoin cashback with every payment made.
American Express announced in June that it would soon debut the first crypto rewards credit card on its network. The card will transact in U.S. dollars and offer crypto back on any purchase category and amount.
Now let's turn our attention to Paypal. The payment giant has introduced three new offerings in June, including a new feature that will allow users to transfer cryptocurrencies to external crypto addresses, including exchanges and hardware wallets, its newest buy now, pay later offering - Pay Monthly, and a new new business credit card - Paypal Business Cashback Mastercard, to better meet the everyday financing needs of small business owners.
Also, some relatively small payment firms were actively participating in this fierce market competition with new offerings launch last month, including UK's Paysend (new launch - Paysend Business), South Africa-based Hello Pay (new launch - SoftPOS), Gatehouse Bank (new launch - Savings App), among others, so as to retain existing customers or onboards new ones.
From the above, we can easily spot that three significant market players - Visa, American Express and Paypal, all have expanded their crypro offerings for customers through new launch, in spite of the recent ongoing cryto downturn, during which a host of investors have been short cryptocurrencies. We may therefore reach a conclusion that cryptocurrency is an irresistible general trend.
Consumer demand is insatiable and never remains the same. Further, the payment industry is already suffering from a severe oligopoly effect. The world's most widely used payment platform, PayPal processed over 19 billion payments in 2021, with platform users totaling 426 million. In addition, the payment giant has the top spot for best payment processing by market share at 44.19%, followed by Stripe, which stands at 18.14% (statistics from Datanyze).
Hence, if a market player rests on its laurels, it is very likely that it will lose competitive edges or market shares.
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