We are currently at a significant turning point: on the one hand, there’s a rise in consumption within emerging markets coupled with global digitisation. This leads to new markets increasingly influencing the production of services and goods. Simultaneously, organisations ranging from small businesses to large enterprises are shifting their focus toward direct-to-consumer (D2C) models.
There is a noticeable turn towards alternative payment methods (APMs) like instant bank transfers, digital wallets, and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), particularly in emerging regions such as LATAM, APAC, and EMEA. Ongoing digital and financial inclusion efforts are propelling more individuals into the financial system, even those without traditional bank accounts, who turn to APMs for their transactional needs.
Businesses are adapting to these changes and placing a significant emphasis on crafting personalised customer experiences. Leveraging technology and data-driven insights, companies are working to understand and meet the diverse expectations of their customer base around the world. The intersection of these trends paints a vivid picture of a fintech-driven future, where innovation and inclusivity take centre stage.
Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia are the most exciting growth markets that businesses should be paying attention to. Smartphone and ecommerce penetration are growing here more than in any other region, and the key to successfully enter these markets is to offer the right payment methods.
Today, merchants face an increasingly complex landscape. The rapid evolution of commerce demands both convenience and ease of doing business and a high level of security. Merchants are expected to accommodate around 300 different payment types, each with its potential for fraud, which necessitates the integration of numerous fraud prevention solutions – a process which can be costly and overwhelming. Employing a payment orchestration solution can alleviate this burden, allowing businesses to concentrate on their core competencies and thrive in this dynamic environment.
One effective approach to overcome these challenges is using a payment orchestrator. The orchestrators possess a deep understanding of local consumer demands, allowing businesses to tailor their payment strategies to the diverse preferences of new customers. This is particularly valuable for merchants navigating the complexities of international expansion.
Moreover, payment orchestrators enhance business resilience against fraud. By integrating anti-fraud solutions into the payment workflow, orchestrators provide an added layer of security. They often come equipped with their own anti-fraud solutions and offer standard features such as 3-DSecure (3DS), contributing to a more secure payment environment.
In essence, the strategic use of payment orchestrators enables businesses to optimise their payment strategies, adapt to local nuances, navigate compliance, and fortify their resilience against fraud – all of which are key elements for a successful venture into new territories.
The founding of Yuno was prompted by the challenges faced while growing Rappi, an on-demand delivery company I cofounded in 2015. The intricacies emerged from integrating numerous payment methods, each with its distinct requirements, necessitating substantial time and effort for each integration. These persistent challenges prompted the realisation that merchants required a more efficient solution.
At the core of Yuno’s mission is a commitment to offer merchants a broader range of payment methods, streamline the acceptance process, and reduce costs. Yuno’s solution simplifies connections to new payment providers and integrates the Smart Routing tool, optimising payment flows and enhancing approval rates. Moreover, by prioritising client security, Yuno enables clients to select anti-fraud solutions integrated into their payment routes, ensuring a robust and secure payment environment for their operations. Yuno envisions a future where businesses, regardless of their region, can navigate the complexities of payment acceptance, with us as their trusted global partner.
To stay ahead of the curve, merchants must keep up with what customers want. Approximately half of the world’s 236 central banks are exploring the idea of issuing their own central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with countries like Nigeria (eNaira), Jamaica (Jamdex), and China already having launched theirs. In addition, several commercial banks, along with the New York Federal Reserve Innovation Center, have recently conducted a pilot for a digital dollar. This trend coincides with the growing consumption power in emerging markets. For instance, the average age in the Philippines is 24 years, compared to 38 in the US. This younger demographic demands different products and exhibits distinct purchasing behaviours. In the future, concepts like Embedded Finance or unified commerce will become standard rather than being seen as novelties.
We’re seeing new ways to pay, not just from big players like Click Pay by Visa and Mastercard, but also from governments, like the Pix initiative in Brazil. These changes are shaping how we handle payments. There’s a shift towards APMs, which are becoming more popular than traditional credit cards. People want payments to be easy, safe, and flexible to their needs. For instance, with BNPL, customers want to get what they want now and pay for it later. So, for businesses to keep up, they need to adapt quickly and work with these new payment options to meet what customers are looking for.
This editorial piece was first published in The Paypers' Cross-Border Payments and Ecommerce Report 2023–2024, which taps into the fast-growing cross-border market and provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments that are pivotal in this space, being the ultimate source of information for ecommerce businesses interested in expanding globally.
Juan Pablo Ortega is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yuno. Before Yuno, he cofounded Rappi, LATAM’s largest and fastest-growing on-demand platform – and one of the region’s ‘unicorn’ startups, with operations in nine countries and a valuation of over USD 5.2 billion. He received a bachelor’s degree in Applied Economics from Cornell University.
Yuno is a global payments orchestration platform, with a presence in every region around the world. It enables the construction of a successful payments ecosystem, offering features such as one-click checkout modification, Smart Routing, the ability to view information from all payment processors, and fraud detection in one place, along with an intuitive workflow dashboard.
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