The Future of the Payment Industry
Digital payments are on the rise. According to a recent report, the global payments market’s valuation of $3,885 billion in 2019 could rise at an exponential rate to $8,686 billion in 2025. However, the industry’s growth is hindered by the inefficiencies of traditional payment solutions.
The industry’s issues – such as slow settlements, high fees, non-transparent operation, and charges, as well as an inadequate number of local payment methods – lead to decreased customer satisfaction and lower levels of business growth.
Fortunately, with the appearance and exponentially growing popularity of fintech payment solutions, new trends have appeared on the market that has the potential to eliminate the issues of the industry.
The Rising Popularity of E-Wallets
While credit card payments are the most popular payment methods for digital transactions in some countries – such as Spain where Visa and MasterCard have a combined market share of 70% –, the citizens of other nations (located mostly on the Asian continent) prefer alternative ways to pay for online purchases.
Due to the above-mentioned, businesses are unable to fully satisfy the payment preferences with credit and debit card payments only. As a result, customers within these regions would be less likely to convert, which will eventually lead to decreased sales.
A viable solution to this issue is an e-wallet service – like the award-winning fintech digital wallet solution STICPAY – that offers a wide variety of payment methods to customers along with a secure, user-friendly way to pay for online orders while providing easy integration for merchants. Furthermore, STICPAY leverages its connections with local financial institutions to offer competitive rates to both B2C and B2B customers.
With a combination of a global payment service and a wide variety of local payment methods, e-wallet services can also be used to conveniently transfer funds across borders via a more efficient payment network than traditional cross-border remittance solutions (e.g., SWIFT).
E-wallet usage is already on the rise, with a study predicting the number of digital wallet users to be 2.1 billion by the end of 2019, a nearly 30% increase from 2017’s 1.6 billion.
However, due to the combination of flawless payments and innovative features that facilitate an increased level of customer satisfaction, the popularity of e-wallets will continue to surge in the upcoming years and will eventually take over the place of credit cards among the top online payment methods.
Increased Crypto Adoption
Since the birth of Bitcoin in 2009, cryptocurrencies have been becoming increasingly popular among businesses and consumers alike.
With the rising adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology – the underlying tech that powers cryptocurrencies – the crypto market is expected to grow from 2019’s $1.03 billion to $1.40 billion in 2024 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.18%.
With that said, crypto payments – that feature cost-efficient, fast, and secure transactions on a global scale – will see increased adoption in the near future, offering consumers and businesses an alternative way to handle their finances.
There’s already a trend among e-wallet services to allow cryptocurrencies to be used for cross-border payments by offering options to deposit, send, and withdraw digital assets. This trend will likely grow in the future as digital wallets and cryptocurrency is a good combination to offer a viable alternative to traditional cross-border payment services.
Also, the popularity of crypto debit cards is growing, and it will continue to rise in the future, as most existing solutions allow users to spend their digital assets conveniently, without the need to sell and withdraw their cryptocurrency.
The Fintech Revolution to Power Innovative Payment Card Solutions
In the past few years, the fintech revolution has become a real thing. As opposed to traditional banking services, fintech companies combined flawless technology, innovative features, and reasonable pricing to create a next-generation of payment products.
According to The Business Research Company’s study, the fintech market will continue its rapid growth, increasing its market size from 2018’s $127.66 billion to nearly $310 billion in 2022 at a whopping CAGR of 24.8%.
As services of fintechs often come with their own debit cards – such as the STIC Card, Revolut card, or the TransferWise debit MasterCard – that customers can use to fully harness the benefits of the solutions, we’ll also see a global rise of innovative payment card solutions within the fintech space.
Top 5 European Fintech Payment Companies to Watch in 2020
Ok, so we know that the fintech industry is booming, offering a viable alternative to traditional banking and payment solutions on the market. And it’s no wonder. Fintech startups from all over the world are introducing next-generation payment solutions that are more efficient than their competitors in the traditional financial industry have. Europe has been one of the leaders of the fintech revolution, with multiple companies expanding their user bases at exponential rates by offering unique solutions to their customers.
Here are the hottest fintech companies in Europe that will shape the future of the industry through 2020 and beyond, including TransferWise, Revolut, STICPAY, Monzo, and N26:
TransferWise
Founded in 2011, the London-based fintech firm TransferWise has expanded its users base to five million customers in nine years, with the company processing over $5 million transactions every month.
In addition to facilitating cross-border transactions via an efficient network, TransferWise also features a borderless payments account that is available for customers in multiple countries.
One interesting fact about TransferWise is that it is among the handful of fintech firms that have remained profitable, with the payments company reporting over $13 million net profits in March 2019.
Revolut
Revolut has been one of the hottest fintech payment startups in Europe.
Via a simple yet feature-rich mobile app, the company presents a full-fledged digital finance platform to its users where they can transfer funds, exchange currency, and invest in stocks (among other features).
The UK-based fintech company currently has about 6 million customers, a number that the firm managed to increase by 4.5 million in a year, as well as reporting that 16,000 new Revolut accounts are created every day.
STICPAY
The UK-based fintech firm STICPAY features an award-winning global e-wallet and payment service. STICPAY is a relatively new player in the fintech space, but the company is increasing its user base at an exponential rate.
With a YoY growth of 300% and availability in over 200 countries, STICPAY’s goal is to connect businesses with international users via an efficient payment network.
STICPAY’s global network is available for both merchants and end-users, offering a wide variety of payment methods – including MasterCard, Visa, UnionPay China, cryptocurrencies, and local bank transfers – and the option to directly spend their e-wallet funds via the STIC Card.
With language support for European countries as well as local currency wallets in Europe – which allows users to save money on exchange rates –, STICPAY aims to fulfill the demands of the region’s businesses and customers alike.
Monzo
Monzo is a UK-based fintech startup that provides alternative banking services to domestic and US customers.
By offering innovative features – such as “Get Paid Early” that allows users to receive payments from their workplaces earlier –, Monzo has recently passed the 3-million customer mark, featuring a company valuation of $2.56 billion.
However, Monzo is among the European fintech companies that utilize the concept of “introducing features earlier and generating profits later,” accumulating over $60 million of losses for the fiscal year ending in March 2019.
N26
N26 is a Germany-based neobank that allows its customers to do their finances via their smartphones. The fintech firm offers a variety of plans to its users, with each offering a unique set of benefits as well as a MasterCard debit card.
Currently, N26 has a user base of around 1 million customers, located in the United States and selected European countries.
The Future of the Payment Industry
With the increased adoption of e-wallets and cryptocurrencies as well as the overall growth of the fintech market, an increased number of new payment solutions will appear on the market to fulfill the ever-growing demands of both businesses and consumers.
As a result, we are looking forward to a bright future for the payment industry that facilitates business growth and efficient operations. These days, some of the most notable problems of the payment industry include high commission and long operating processes, in particular for international transactions. Electronic wallets and the notion of cryptocurrencies as a payment method can in principle help people transact in a decentralized and more efficient way.
