-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on February 5, 2019ECOMMPAY wins Innovation in Payments award at IGA 2019
Challenging industry rivals for the honour of taking home a prestigious award at the International Gaming Awards 2019, ECOMMPAY is pleased to announce its victory in the Innovation in Payments category.
Having previously won the now-retired Payment Processing Company of the Year award in 2017, ECOMMPAY has reaffirmed its commitment to innovation by introducing payments technologies targeted towards improving iGaming client operations.
A carefully selected panel of experts assessed the payment service provider and direct acquirer’s contributions to the industry, focussing on GATE2025, the reimagined payment gateway launched last year, to name ECOMMPAY the victor in the Innovation in Payments category.
Yesterday, February 4, the Savoy Hotel in London hosted leaders of the gaming industry for an extravagant gala dinner in honour of the prestigious International Gaming Awards 2019. Now in its 12th year, the awards ceremony strives to identify and acknowledge forerunners in the various disciplines of online gaming and related business sectors.
With this recent victory as confirmation of ECOMMPAY’s success within the iGaming industry, the payment service provider looks forward to meeting with both current and prospective clients at ICE London to discuss how its advanced payment technologies and bespoke solutions could benefit their business.
Find ECOMMPAY at Stand N9-110.
The post ECOMMPAY wins Innovation in Payments award at IGA 2019 appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on January 29, 2019In Conversation with Anastasia Zencika, Head of PR, Marketing & Events at ECOMMPAY
The upcoming ICE London, taking place between 5-7 February, marks our fifth year as an exhibitor. In honour of the occasion, we spoke to Anastasia Zencika, who’s congruently celebrating five years of managing ECOMMPAY’s presence at the largest event on the iGaming calendar.
What was your first experience of ICE?
When I joined ECOMMPAY, we were poised to enter a few key markets. ICE is one of the largest events across the entire e-Commerce industry, attracting a wider audience than just iGaming operators, so we identified it as an excellent launchpad from which to establish our brand. My first visit was exploratory – without a stand – to see how visitors engage with exhibitors, what competition is doing, and to scope out the venue.
Despite preparations of this nature, I had higher expectations for our first time exhibiting. I thought that by having a well-designed stand, we’d attract crowds of visitors and that the largest operators would fortuitously stop by. That wasn’t the case, obviously, so it really hit home how much work needs to go into pre-event marketing.
In subsequent years, we began sending out invitations to both clients and prospects. It surprised me how eager our existing merchants were to stop by, discuss their progress, brainstorm ideas, and just socialise with the team. Because we communicate with them daily, I didn’t realise the impact that witnessing our continued success at events has on client trust and loyalty.
How have your pre-event preparations changed over the years?
We’ve definitely learned to initiate our build-up to big events, such as ICE London, several months in advance and in a very targeted manner. As in, our experience has shown that we don’t need massive crowds of people on the stand, so instead of blowing the budget on attractions, we invest more in advertising and networking to ensure our prospective merchants book meetings.
Another key area in which we’ve made significant improvements is in ensuring our team knows not only what to expect, but also what is expected of them. If previously our account managers could be on their laptops replying to emails throughout the event, we have since established best practices, which include scanning the crowd and proactively approaching prospects in between meetings.
What kind of challenges have you encountered?
We were always looking to improve our position. First-time exhibitors contact the organisers to request an available spot, which are allotted after repeat exhibitors choose their preferred places. You can’t move anyone out of the way, of course, but exhibitions grow and new spaces appear. We got lucky last year when ICE rounded up all the payments companies into a “Payments Village” and we managed to reserve a spot near the entrance.
In terms of challenges we had to deal with on the spot, there was one year – four years back, if I’m not mistaken – when we ordered a Formula 1 car with an integrated simulation game. The game didn’t work on the first day, so we ended up using it as a photo opportunity until we could get it replaced. Nobody noticed. My point is that creativity is crucial to event planning – not everything is going to go smoothly, so it’s important to think on your feet and adapt as necessary.
Creativity also plays a role when conceiving of ways to drive traffic to your stand. If you’re positioned further away, you’ll need to motivate visitors by incentivising them to stop by. One year, we teamed up with a neighbouring booth, who offered complementary services, to share a bar, as well as any relevant leads gathered as a result.
What have been your favourite moments?
I love seeing what the biggest operators will do every year – not only because their stands are always entertaining, but also because it gives me great ideas. Last year, I was particularly impressed with how Microgaming changed their theme every single day. I also enjoy the networking opportunities at and around ICE – there’s always something happening and it’s a great, informal way to hold more open, honest discussions with clients and prospects on their pain points and potential solutions.
On a personal note, it’s been fantastic to see our team grow and mature, becoming increasingly confident and recognised within the industry.
Would you say that the iGaming industry has changed over the past five years?
Absolutely! And if the product innovations speak for themselves, it’s also important to note the increasing diversity in the industry. iGaming has tended to be very male-dominated, but now we’re witnessing more and more women in leadership. There’s been a lot of talk about female representation in high risk industries over the past few years, but it really came to a head in 2018, when operators were criticised for relying on the old adage of “sex sells” to attract visitors.
I think it once again comes down to creativity – operators are being forced to rethink their presentation to engage consumers on a different level.
What other lessons can you share from your exhibition experiences?
It’s critical to have a clear understanding of how exhibitions work and what they’re for. You can’t expect a return on your investment immediately. It does bring in money, but over time – once prospects see the same company returning to exhibit year after year, it establishes trust and ensures brand recognition, which can then prompt them into making enquiries about your services.
Also, relationships are key. Every year, you’ll find people who help you achieve your goals in unexpected ways, from a hostess who ends up being a great salesperson to a stand-builder who’ll come up with an amazing idea. If you take the time to get to know your extended team’s strengths and inspire them to believe in your brand, they’ll add tremendous value.
Ultimately, events are an eternal learning curve, but each year helps refine the process!
If you’re interested in learning more about ECOMMPAY’s tailored iGaming payment solutions or chatting about events, don’t hesitate to book a meeting with Anastasia between 5-7 February at ICE London.
The post In Conversation with Anastasia Zencika, Head of PR, Marketing & Events at ECOMMPAY appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on January 23, 2019ECOMMPAY returns to ICE London with updated payments arsenal
It’s ECOMMPAY’s wooden anniversary at ICE London this year, where we will be celebrating five years of showcasing our advanced iGaming payment solutions at progressively larger, increasingly elaborate booths. Catch us between February 5-7 at Stand N9-110 – our biggest and grandest yet!
ICE Totally Gaming has undergone a brand transformation this year, becoming ICE London. Preserving the same tenets that made its previous incarnation an international success, ICE London incorporates an informative industry conference ICE VOX, running congruently with a dedicated exhibition of the latest solutions and content across all gaming sectors from all over the world.
Last year’s ICE welcomed more than 33,500 attendees from over 150 countries for three days of dialogue, discussion, and debate. ECOMMPAY’s stand was unmissable in what became affectionately known as the ‘Payments Village’, attracting existing and prospective clients alike with an eye-catching display and a private bar.
Responding quickly, efficiently, and effectively to the constant changes taking place within the iGaming sector, ECOMMPAY helps operators maintain a competitive edge with bespoke, tailored payment solutions. In 2018, the payment service provider unveiled its newest processing platform, GATE2025, at the exhibition.
This year, ECOMMPAY is looking to build on the success of GATE2025. Our team of payment experts will be on hand to announce the latest updates, share the latest insights, and offer individual consultations. Schedule a meeting or look for ECOMMPAY’s stand at ICE London, which will be positioned by the entrance to Sector N9 at Stand N9-110.
The post ECOMMPAY returns to ICE London with updated payments arsenal appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on January 15, 2019In conversation with Paul Marcantonio, Head of UK/Western Europe at ECOMMPAY
Can you believe it’s been two years since our Head of UK/Western Europe Paul Marcantonio joined ECOMMPAY to establish the payment service provider as a trusted partner to e-Commerce merchants throughout the region? We spoke to him about the company’s ongoing growth, changing industry trends, and his vision for the future.
When you joined ECOMMPAY in January 2017, you highlighted brand awareness as a key priority – would you say this is still the case?
We’ve done a fantastic job over the past two years in creating regular brand touchpoints: we’ve raised our social media profile, we’ve been nominated for a huge number of awards, we’ve been much more visible in terms of relevant expos. Obviously, this remains a work in progress and we don’t want to get too complacent, but I’ve got to give credit where credit is due – we’ve come a long way since 2017, and I expect that we’ll continue our upward trajectory this year and beyond.
Having achieved brand recognition, have your priorities shifted?
Our brand building exercises tie in very neatly with what I had identified as my long-term objective, which is diversification into new verticals. In the past, we presented ourselves as quite specialised, but we now have the luxury of extending our payments expertise. In 2018, for example, we didn’t limit ourselves to ICE Totally Gaming, where ECOMMPAY has had a presence for the past five years, but we also ventured into the travel sector with a stand at WTM. Our thought leadership appears in publications such as PaymentEye and Travolution alongside features in SBC News and iGaming Business. And if we look at the award nominations we received in the past two weeks, it’s already quite telling – in addition to the International Gaming Awards, we’re in the running for the FSTech Awards and The Card & Payments Awards.
How accurate was the vertical targeting you defined two years ago?
It’s never good in any business to put all your eggs in one basket, so from day one, I really pushed for new core competencies. Naturally, we want to maintain the expertise we’ve accumulated in high risk industries, such as iGaming and Forex, but we’ve since looked into new industries in which we can also apply our payments experience. Under my leadership, we’ve hired top specialists to spearhead our foray into new verticals – quite successfully, might I add, as we’ve already partnered with impressive brands from the travel, hospitality, and retail sectors.
Now that you’ve diversified your portfolio, would you say that merchant requirements have changed?
I think yes, but not necessarily as a result of their specific vertical. Merchant requirements change in response to a lot of external factors, including regulation, technological advances, and industry trends. For example, when GDPR and PSD2 came into force, there was a heightened focus on the customer journey and on ensuring consumer identities were protected.
Merchants have also expressed more interest in the services we can offer beyond direct acquiring. They look to our understanding of regional markets to inform their choices on which alternative payment methods to integrate. They ask about our risk management solutions. They consult with us on how to comply with regulatory changes. We’ve become a one-stop shop for anything and everything to do with handling consumer payments, saving our merchants both time and money.
What about challenges? Are you facing new challenges as a result of diversification?Payments is a very crowded space, so we have to work very hard to establish our value, answering the eternal “so what?” question. Market saturation tends to result in a price war, but there’s a fundamental difference between price and value. ECOMMPAY offers added value. We challenge our potential and existing merchants to speak about their pain points, their blue-sky requirements, what their ambitions are and what they need to make them a reality. We take the time to get under the skin of their business, developing bespoke solutions backed up by proprietary technologies.
So has working at ECOMMPAY met the expectations you had two years ago?
Definitely! I’m very happy to be working in a company with such a unique vision and with such a talented, passionate team of payment experts behind me. We’re already achieving great things, and there’s still so much more to come. That being said, I’m still hoping to shake up the industry a bit more. Many merchants – across multiple industries – are quite averse to change. It’s easier for them to say no that it is for them to say yes, so I’m hoping that as we continue demonstrating the benefit – increased conversion, improved security, broader global coverage – they’ll be more willing to commit.
The post In conversation with Paul Marcantonio, Head of UK/Western Europe at ECOMMPAY appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on January 8, 2019How to beat your winter travel payments blues
It’s January. We’ve made it into the New Year, but we’re still stuck in the depths of winter. And if you’re a travel operator, you know better than most that travel thrives on sunny weather. With some extremist exceptions, holidaymakers don’t generally want to visit somewhere new only to spend their time hiding indoors from the rain, sleet, or snow.
It’s from this traveller tendency that the traditional delineation between the warm, sunny, and expensive ‘high season’ and colder, rainier, and cheaper ‘low season’ comes. Understanding and formulating a comprehensive approach to tackling travel payments in winter is key for any operator hoping to make it through the season.
The travel industry has been grappling with the issue of driving business up during low season since there’s been a travel industry. So how do you get people out of their homes and onto a plane when the weather outside is frightful (and the fire is so delightful)?
Overcoming Conversion’s Summertime Sadness
Luckily, there’s a set of handy tips and tricks that travel businesses can use to overcome these challenges and then some. As it stands at the moment, travel websites have an abandonment rate of an enormous 81.6%. Sure, you’re never gonna catch them all, but numbers like that hint at a broader problem than simple customer capriciousness, and part of that problem is the confusing design of a great many travel websites. In fact, 21% of those people abandoning their carts are doing so due to issues with the sites they’re using.
It’s vital to ensure that the layout of your travel payments journey is as smooth as can be. That means understandable error messages, intuitive interfaces, and a straightforward path from the A of ‘Add to Basket’ to the Z of ‘Checkout’. Any speed bumps in the process are speed bumps on the road to a travel business receiving its payment, and that means no more popups like ‘Error 59CB2.6: Code Ezekiel: Strike Team Deployed’, or labyrinthine payment processes, and it especially means a quality user experience regardless of device. A system that minimises the potential for error and, if errors do occur, explains how to fix them in short order, is the absolute best way to avoid wasting customers’ time, and your own.
A smaller, but still important factor in maintaining high conversion rates lies in the ability to accept a variety of payment methods. 7% of people end up dumping their cart when they discover that they can’t actually pay for its contents in their preferred manner. With tourism from Asian countries growing year by year, it’s more important than ever for travel operators to broaden their payment horizons and expand beyond the familiarity of Visa and Mastercard. Customers are sure to flock to the only sites with the forethought to accept methods like UnionPay or AliPay while everyone else caters exclusively to older methods.
Winter is Coming and Your Customers are Going
Though low season is higher than ever before, with plenty of young people embarking upon a variety of winter getaways last year, it’s still harder to snag customers when it’s darker and colder outside. Keeping those revenues high in the low season is a matter of delegation and understanding, making sure that what can be done by computers is done by computers and that your smartest people are free to work on keeping your customers engaged and interested. Travel operators need to get creative in the winter months to keep customers coming back, meaning clever marketing, audience segmentation, and automation. A strong social media game and seasonally-themed marketing can work wonders for your winter revenues, while being ultra-clear on who you’re marketing to and when, for example targeting ‘adventure tourism’ ads at gap-year-aged young adults during autumn and winter, will ensure you maximise returns and minimise unnecessary costs. To be glib, you’ve got to know your customers if you want them to keep coming back!
Automation in particular is something a strong partnership with a good payment service provider can help with. Many hotels still rely on the manual input of staff members for a number of tasks related to the processing of payments and stopping fraud. To put it lightly, that’s a significant waste of resources on something that could be achieved far more efficiently, and cheaply, by a well-implemented and secure process for accepting travel payments. Freeing up your staff to do the things they’re good at while leaving the security to the computers is vital for any business in the 21st century, but especially for a travel company operating during the off season, when every misplaced hour and mis-spent pound counts.
The post How to beat your winter travel payments blues appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of BOKU
Posted on December 12, 2018Boku awarded International Star at European Small and Mid-Cap Awards
The Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) and EuropeanIssuers, in cooperation with the European Commission announced the winners of the 6th European Small and Mid-Cap Awards. This year, the award for International Star was presented to Boku. The winner of the International Star award was selected on the basis of being a newly listed mid-cap company that boasts impressive results in terms of international sales, profit and market share growth.
According to the award committee, “All stellar candidates competing in this category have likely expanded their presence in either existing and new markets and made great achievements in the international scene. The International Star Award will go to a well-managed company that demonstrates a sound strategy for taking advantage of opportunities outside its own country.”
Boku is particularly proud of its achievements in international markets and is very honoured to be publicly recognized for it. Read full post
The post Boku awarded International Star at European Small and Mid-Cap Awards appeared first on Boku Inc..
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on December 4, 2018Overview of SiGMA 2018 by ECOMMPAY
Last week, payment service provider ECOMMPAY was in Malta, exhibiting a vast array of innovative payment technologies and offering consultations on establishing effective payment strategies to existing and prospective clients. SiGMA, running between 28-30 November at the Malta Fairs and Conventions Centre, attracted over 12,500 visitors.
In addition to leading representatives of the iGaming industry showcasing their latest products and services, the exhibition welcomed more than 200 speakers to host a series of inspiring talks and workshops. Key industry professionals shared insights and discussed trends, covering topics as diverse as regulation, blockchain technologies, payments, and eSports.
Our Head of UK/Western Europe, Paul Marcantonio, reflected on his experience at SiGMA 2018:
Though exhausting, events such as SiGMA, where you can catch up with industry peers and make strategically important connections, are incredibly rewarding! This year, I’m thrilled to report that visitors to our stand sought us out specifically, reflecting not only our iGaming expertise, but also our pristine reputation!
If you didn’t catch ECOMMPAY at SiGMA, but would like to learn more about the bespoke payment solutions we engineer for the iGaming industry, please do not hesitate to get in touch!
The post Overview of SiGMA 2018 by ECOMMPAY appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on November 27, 2018Handling International Payments the Smart Way
Borders can be pesky, right? Queueing at passport control, paying for visas, and potentially losing thousands upon thousands in revenue as your payments fail to make their way across the globe from your customer to your bank account (that one might sting a bit more than the first two). Now more than ever, nearly every enterprise is a global enterprise, doing business across cultures and timezones at the click of a mouse and the swipe of a finger. But it can sometimes feel like payments have yet to catch up, with payment acceptance rates hovering anywhere between “just about okay” and “abysmal” because so few companies have the mechanisms in place to establish a genuinely smart method of handling worldwide payments. Well, as luck would have it, we have just the thing. ECOMMPAY’s suite of smooth, dynamic and customisable payment routing technologies, backed by their smooth, dynamic, not-so-customisable team, are built to overcome precisely the challenges that global payments can throw up.
Keeping things moving
Efficiency is the name of the game with payment routing. Using artificial intelligence and a wealth of regional expertise, routing technology is able to rapidly calculate the most efficient paths possible for any given transaction, wherever they originate and wherever they’re going. Taking into account everything from geography to card type to channel accessibility, ECOMMPAY’s payment routing tech quickly chauffeurs your payments from point A to be point B (to point C, to point D, to… well, you know), circumventing obstacles or removing them entirely. By freeing your company from ties to singular banks and acquirers, instead providing access to a whole host of banks and acquirers and calculating the smartest route through them, smart payment routing sends acceptance rates skyward. Heck, it’ll even drive costs down as it drives payments up, selecting the merchant identification numbers (MID) in whatever currencies your business requires (and thereby avoiding the dreaded spectre of double conversion that looms over a lot of large and expanding businesses).
Making it yours
It’s that breadth and depth of access that lets the clever little systems underpinning the routing tech to make the best possible decision for this or that payment at this or that time, but that doesn’t mean delegating your business’ most important functions to a (admittedly, very swish) robot and crossing your fingers. It’s the human touch that takes those systems from A to A+. Not only is the tech underpinned by a brilliant and dedicated team of regional experts at ECOMMPAY headquarters, available 24/7, but its specifics can be finely-tuned to match the exact needs and desires of your company. The particular requirements of your company will define the routes that are chosen for your transactions.
Starting as you mean to go on
But the benefits of a solid payment routing mechanism aren’t reserved for businesses that already operate internationally. Plucky newcomers (or plucky old-timers, we don’t discriminate) hoping to branch out, and minimise costs while they do it, stand to gain a lot by getting ahead of the game and integrating this kind of tech into their payment processing sequence early. Those looking to enter new markets will find that ECOMMPAY’s tech ably facilitates connections to new channels.
A global business needs to be able to operate globally, and it is just that service which ECOMMPAY’s payment routing tech and expertise provides. Our peerless payment routing tech is best-in-class when it comes to busting the proverbial dams in the payment stream. From the second your customer hits ‘pay’, our tech is right there to ferry the transaction along to the best possible conclusion. I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty smart to us.
The post Handling International Payments the Smart Way appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of ECommPay
Posted on November 20, 2018ECOMMPAY to exhibit at SiGMA (Summit of iGaming, Malta)
The fifth edition of SiGMA, the definitive iGaming showcase, will take place between the 28th and 30th of November at the Malta Fairs and Conventions Centre in Ta’Qali. In 2018, the conference will welcome over 400 sponsors and exhibitors, who will present innovative products and technologies to a crowd of more than 12,500 visitors and 2,500 affiliates from 80+ countries. Running parallel to the exhibition, a series of talks and workshops covering topics as diverse as regulation, blockchain, programmatic, eSports, etc., will educate attendees to further enhance the event experience.
International payment service provider and direct card acquirer ECOMMPAY will join iGaming professionals, payments industry peers, and assorted service providers at the event, displaying a selection of customisable payment solutions for iGaming at Stand S169. Colleagues from three international offices, including product experts, customer service representatives, and alternative payment method specialists, will be happy to meet both current and prospective clients to discuss industry trends and propose innovative solutions to common operator pain points. Book a meeting with our experts!
The post ECOMMPAY to exhibit at SiGMA (Summit of iGaming, Malta) appeared first on ECOMMPAY | Payment Solutions. Individually tailored.
-
View all news of BOKU
Posted on October 12, 2018Boku awarded “Best Newcomer” at AIM Awards
Each year, PwC sponsors an awards gala to celebrate outstanding achievement on the AIM stock exchange. Awards go to companies and entrepreneurs who have most successfully harnessed AIM to fulfill their ambition and growth potential in the last year.
This year, Boku is honoured to be awarded the “Best Newcomer”. This award is given to a company that is “a strong contender for Company of the Year were it not due to the lack of a public company track record… the winner will already have caught the imagination of investors.”
Pictured, left to right: David Snell, Partner and AIM Leader, PwC; Stuart Neal, CFO, Boku Inc. (winner); Justin Cooper, CEO, Link Market Services; and Sophie Raworth, awards presenter. Read full post
The post Boku awarded “Best Newcomer” at AIM Awards appeared first on Boku Inc..
