Members of the E-payments Working Committee
- the Netherlands: Paul Alfing, chair
- Belgium: Carine Moitier
- France: Laure Beate
- France: Marc Lolivier
- Italy: Roberto Liscia
- the Netherlands: Martijn Hos
Goals
Throughout the economic crisis of the recent years, e-commerce has remained the growing, innovating sector that it has been from the start. With the proliferation of mobile internet, in some regions surpassing fixed connections, the appearance of the sector grows even more diverse. Payments are a part of this vivid eco-system and have to adapt to new regions, new forms of usage and new channels.
It is Ecommerce Europe’s vision that successful pan-European e-payment methods are a crucial element in future growth. Ecommerce Europe aims to transform this vision into actions and initiatives towards a more effective and efficient e-payments landscape in Europe, beneficial for both web merchants and consumers.
The key message from merchants to the financial industry is to intensify innovation on ‘customer not present’ solutions for e-commerce transactions. This poses various usability and security challenges for both merchants and consumers. Improvement of the payment situation will foster e-commerce growth.
Issues
Card based payments and related fraud issues
It’s hard to underestimate the importance of cards in the current e-commerce landscape. Due to their high penetration in major consumer markets, (credit) cards guarantee a large reach, which is the main merchants’ concern when deciding which payment options to accept. Cards however, do have certain flaws that make them less suitable for certain contexts. Their main flaw is vulnerability to fraud in ‘card not present’ transactions, which affects merchants and consumers strongly.
Online Banking e-Payment schemes
The integration of the European payments market (the SEPA project) has led to the introduction of two pan-European payment instruments, SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD). The market has been slow to adopt these new services so far and it is expected that the recently agreed end-date regulation will accelerate this adoption. With an integrated market for credit transfers and direct debits, the reach of these payment methods can compete with that of cards. It’s up to the payment industry to make this reach available for use in e-commerce.
Alternative payment services
Alternative Payment services are defined as services offered by regulated entities other than banks. As these payment solutions (e.g. wallets, overlay services and cash-on-delivery services) are usually developed by innovative companies, they are specifically developed for e-commerce.
Mobile commerce
In 2011, the number of smart phones sold exceeded the number of PCs. People are more and more connected through their mobile phones and tablets and this will have its effect on consumers’ shopping behavior. Ecommerce Europe believes that the rapid increase in the number of mobile devices will be at the root of the next growth wave of e-commerce. Because of the different user settings and screen sizes as well as the uncertainty and security risks, not every online payment method is applicable to mobile devices. Therefore merchants require payment methods that are optimized for mobile devices and which can be offered in a competitive fashion.
Online identity and authentication
Web users have a vast number of online identities of various natures: starting from social network profiles, bank account credentials, academia credentials and government websites accounts. These logins or credentials could be verified or unverified, depending on the level of security required.
Web merchants welcome initiatives towards re-using these identities in the ecommerce process.
Publications