Recent trends in the payments industry have pointed towards the fact that whoever you are, it’s tough to go it alone and be successful.
Partnerships in payments aren’t new, but they’re certainly becoming an increasingly important element in eCommerce. Whether these partnerships are between merchants and gateway providers, between gateway providers and alternative payment methods, or between alternative payment methods and acquiring banks, the culture of collaboration is fuelling the payments industry’s progress into the future.
When a customer experiences a fast, frictionless and secure online payment system, they will probably be unaware of the web of partnerships that lies behind the merchant’s checkout page; and this is precisely how all parties involved want it to be. Customer choice and convenience are the desired outcome when businesses decide to partner up.
Localised Payments
Alternative Payment Methods (APM’s) give customers the flexibility to pay using the method most convenient for them. The most widely recognised APM in the UK and the US is PayPal, but were you to ask a Dutch, Chinese or Nigerian person what is the easiest way to purchase online, they would tell you of different payment methods – Alipay, iDeal, Qiwi. What’s abundantly clear is that, in order to nurture a global customer base, merchants need to offer several different payment methods.
To do this, they must choose an online payment provider that has existing partnerships with these APM’s. Unless collaboration exists between the payments provider and the alternative payment providers, customer choice is limited when it comes to the checkout.
For merchants to get the most out of these behind-the-scenes partnerships, and therefore to offer a truly localised eCommerce experience, they have to choose a payments provider that has teamed up with a number of APM’s. For the most convenient customer experience, merchants should make sure that their online payments provider offers key APM’s such as ApplePay, PayPal, AliPay, Sofort and PaySafe.
Referral Partnerships
When companies who sell technology platforms to outlets and subsidiary companies need a payment gateway, a partnership is the perfect solution. This works with the technology company being the intermediary between the payment service provider (PSP) and its clients.
For example, let’s say that your company sells technology services to independent schools, and needs a secure payment gateway so that each school can accept payments online. A partnership with a trusted payment service provider ensures that each school benefits in several ways, including:
- Proven payment gateway services and security
- Account management
- Seamless integration
Not only does your company provide your clients with a tried-and-tested service, but you can also profit through revenue share from your introductions.
Breaking into New Markets
With different parties involved in an APM-PSP partnership, the referral partnership feels the benefits of localised payments nonetheless.
If your company wants to win new clients in new markets, collaboration is the key. By partnering with an online payment platform that offers the preferred payment methods in your target markets, expansion in these territories become a whole lot easier for you.
Ensuring that your payments partner has expertise in localised payments and foreign markets, and having an account manager to help you through this challenging yet rewarding process, are both key to this kind of expansion. The payments industry has recognised how valuable strategic partnerships truly are, and if merchants want to benefits from this, they should choose a payments provider with a plethora of strong partnerships, or enter into a partnership themselves.
To find out how a partnership with Trust Payments could help to accelerate your business growth, contact us now.
