Simplicity Defines Success For Cross Border B2B Marketplaces

As the digital-first economy continues to integrate into the lives of consumers, some geographical differences are starting to show. AsiaPac continues to drive mobile payments and super apps. North America is focused on new payment models like buy now, pay later (BNPL) and real-time payments. The European Union, for better or worse, is dealing with Brexit, banking and privacy regulations, and cross-border issues.

It’s a complicated landscape for any company to play in. But some companies are eliminating the complexity – particularly those that have global ambitions, but lack the ability to enable the range of alternative payment methods that cross-border consumers and businesses may want to use.

Case in point: European payment tech firm Limonetik currently operates in 60 nations, allowing its partners – banks, PSPs, acquirers and other financial services players – to access 285 local payment methods worldwide. An impressive list, Limonetik Co-founder and CEO Christophe Bourbier told Karen Webster in a recent conversation – but he has his sights on a much bigger prize: international expansion.

“At the end of the day, you might have 500 or 600 possible payment methods. If you take into account the big ones that account for the majority of volume, you probably have 300 to 350 in the world,” Bourbier told Webster.

It’s a big world of payment transactions, laden with opportunity on all sides as consumers and businesses worldwide are converging on digital platforms to do business. That might mean transacting online, Bourbier said, but it’s expanding to include digital payment in-store in the form of things like QR codes.

And it’s a world where Limonetik would like to play an even larger role than it presently does, with “internationalization” among its primary goals as it attempts to take everything it builds in Europe and expand it outside the continent. As Bourbier noted, the changes the firm has navigated have produced new offerings over the last several months as the European economy has evolved toward digital-first.

“For the last few months, more and more payment players are [accepting] digital payments in Europe, but they are also becoming a must-have in Asia and Africa,” Bourbier noted.

QR Codes And The Expanding APM Field

Banks have in many ways been slow to embrace the world of expanding payment methodology, feeling “just fine” offering credit cards designed for use in-store and leveraging their specialized knowledge of bank transfers, particularly things like SWIFT and SEPA payments, said Bourbier. He noted that although they are getting better, around the world, it is still very possible to find banks that “only offer a credit card and money transfers for their clients, and don’t want to catch up with all the electronic payments.”

But that position is increasingly becoming a minority, he said, noting the recent sudden spike in QR codes as an example.

“We hear [from banks] that they need to have access to all new QR code payments that are available in Europe, and also give access to the merchants,” Bourbier said. “And there are a lot of them, and they want the Alipay and WeChat Pay as well, even though tourists are not back yet – because they are going to be back.”

It’s an example of the increasing push and pressure these providers feel to provide the full range of possible payment optionality to their own clients – the retailers, merchants and marketplaces that need to leverage them, Bourbier noted. And that hunger for a new and better payment methodology can be seen flowing in the historically slow-to-change B2B segment, as demand is finally starting to shift.

The Recreated B2B Landscape

B2B marketplaces have seen massive changes, as businesses are looking for better, smoother and more digitized ways to initiate and complete payments. And as the world has already seen in consumer payments, where the demand is – whether that’s a consumer or a business – is where the market will go.

“I believe the key success factor [for B2B marketplaces] will be the same as what we have experienced for B2C payments, and that will be simplicity,” Bourbier predicted. “The payment solutions have to be easy to access, and must reflect payment choice. That means SEPA and SWIFT payments, but also the emerging innovations around B2B payments.”

That ease of use and simplicity, he said, will be critical in capturing what are essentially new and emerging payment flows for banks, enabling upcoming innovations in digital payments between businesses. As Bourbier and Webster agreed, the potential rewards are quite rich worldwide in terms of capturing new payments volume in underserved fields.

Rerouting Regulatory Friction

On the outset, regulation, and its vicissitudes across national borders, looks to be a constraint on everyone – which means for a firm like Limonetik, it is a key element to control. As Bourbier noted, the firm has solutions for onboarding all vendors and ensuring that all relevant anti-money laundering (AML) is respected and that every control has been done. He added that regulation is a headwind that the firm is willing to endure in order to eliminate friction for its clients.

“Banks understand compliance, but they may be challenged to do that in a seamless way for their clients in every country where they operate,” Bourbier said. Making it easy for them to enable alternative payment methods on behalf of their clients is not only a massive opportunity, but is also critical for banks to serve and retain their clients.