The cross-border ecommerce market shows no signs of slowing down. Experts predict a record CAGR of about 28.4% between 2020 and 2027, with earned revenue climbing to over USD 4,195 billion worldwide.
For merchants, accelerating cross-border ecommerce is a significant growth opportunity. In many cases, expanding to overseas markets is essential to remain competitive.
With Asia forecasted to account for around 40% of this cross-border ecommerce market in the coming years, merchants in this region can’t afford to miss out. All the right ingredients are in place, with fast-growing economies driven by a rising middle class, high Internet penetration, and increased smartphone usage. But merchants looking to transact with international customers have to overcome various challenges. To stay competitive, they must deliver a smooth, secure, and cost-effective cross-border payments experience with multiple payment methods and currencies.
Offering customers the correct payment methods
Gone are the days where the term ‘cross-border selling’ meant working closely with correspondent banks and contending with their high (and often hidden) transfer fees. It’s no longer acceptable to have a lack of visibility on FX rates. Today, merchants and customers demand a cross-border payment experience that is transparent, secure, and reasonably priced.
The payments landscape of today’s digitalised world is diverse and inclusive. At present, it runs on three crucial trends that merchants must consider in their businesses’ operations.
Firstly, alternative payment methods are in high demand, with new ways of making transactions being rolled out on the market. Furthermore, it is equally challenging and necessary to deliver a high-quality customer experience to the unbanked and the highly banked. By doing so, merchants would widen their potential market reach and customer base.
Secondly, as merchants increasingly expand their business ambitions and extend their geographical reach, it has become imperative for them to be armed with robust payment solutions. They need to handle the increased variety, frequency, volume, and diverse locations where their transactions occur.
And finally, merchants’ business costs rise as they expand. With the increase in transaction volume, the introduction of new payment methods, and the adoption of foreign payments, it is necessary for merchants to craft strategies to optimise payment costs.
At 2C2P, we offer a comprehensive suite of solutions to help businesses thrive in the digital age today. In the following sections, we will address our customers’ pain points.
Geography
2C2P is a comprehensive payments platform serving global enterprises across Asia. Also, to date, we have set up more than 400,000 alternative payment method (APM) locations across Asia. This makes us stand out from the crowd – while there are many payment gateways around the world, few come close to our deep regional expertise that spans across different industries.
To help our merchants extend their reach beyond Southeast Asia, we also forged strategic partnerships with Japan, South Korea, India, and Europe.
Our merchants can also utilise our strong Southeast Asian presence to expand regionally and scale their operations. For example, if a merchant in Malaysia wishes to expand its operations to Thailand, 2C2P can connect them to its vast cross-border network.
Consolidated services
To make payments convenient for our merchants, 2C2P offers a one-stop payment solution. From a single point of integration, our merchants have access to everything from payment acceptance and mass payouts to remittance and issuing.
2C2P’s merchants can also track and monitor every transaction flow instantly with our real-time reporting services. This transparency gives them a good gauge on which payment type is popular in any given country.
Cost optimisation
With local players in 2C2P’s repertoire, merchants and airlines stand to benefit from lower cross-border fees. In some Southeast Asian markets, international card schemes are required by local regulators to either route domestic card transactions through local processing networks or abide by domestic interchange rates introduced by the regulators. Merchants in SEAcan benefit from lower merchant fees and increased revenue by choosing a partner like 2C2P who can enable this local switching.
2C2P’s merchants also enjoy the flexibility to switch between acquirers to secure the best rates for their businesses. They can also tap on our multi-currency pricing service to get the most competitive FX rates from different providers. Moreover, 2C2P gives merchants the choice to settle transactions in their local currency or consolidate all their settlements into one currency.
Disaster recovery and backups
2C2P’s disaster recovery features provide our merchants with the ability to pivot to the primary backup site in the event of an unexpected disaster. Notwithstanding, our merchants can also tap on our secondary system that will automatically connect them to a backup acquirer that lets them seamlessly switch systems to continue accepting payments 24/7.
Payment methods
2C2P offers around 250 local, regional, and international payment methods, including cards, wallets, real-time payments, and other alternative payments. To make payments flexible for customers, we also offer a variety of Instalment Payment Plans (IPPs) as well as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options. On top of this, we occasionally run promotions for new payment methods, as we work with an extensive network of payment partners. This helps to reduce the business costs for our merchants further.
Fraud prevention
2C2P’s merchants are guaranteed a strong layer of security on top of the convenience that they enjoy with our product features, such as card and wallet tokenization service, as well as secure infrastructure. Our solutions also support the latest EMVCo 3-D Secure authentication, enabling safer and more frictionless payments, ideal for cross-border ecommerce businesses.
Chargebacks and returns
Having so many rules and regulations around chargebacks and returns can make it difficult for merchants to resolve them when they crop up. With a wealth of experience under our belt, 2C2P is well equipped to provide adequate assistance to merchants in this matter.
This editorial was first published in our Cross-Border Payments and Ecommerce Report 2021–2022, 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.
About Varin Achariyakulporn
Varin Achariyakulporn is the Executive Director of Business Development at 2C2P. A specialist in ecommerce, online banking, and digital payments, Varin has 22 years of proven experience in payment gateways, direct debit system, credit card system, eTransfer systems, mobile solutions, regulatory compliance, integrated payment solution systems, and payment fraud guard systems.
About 2C2P
2C2P is a full-suite payments platform helping the world’s leading enterprises securely accept and make payments through one point of integration. The company is headquartered in Singapore and operates globally. It is the preferred payments platform of tech giants, online marketplaces, retailers, and other global enterprises.
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