×

Posted on

Bahrain: An Early Adopter of Fintech

Category: Super Merchants

Bahrain: An Early Adopter of Fintech
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Bahrain: An Early Adopter of Fintech

As wisdom suggests, regulations are useful when it works. Regulations should enable the economy and not prove to be a hindrance for economic development. Any country which is serious about letting a new industry mushroom and grow, it must create an environment that helps startups and entrepreneurship. Whether it is Silicon Valley or Singapore, favorable business regulations made both these places global hubs for technology startups.

The key ingredients for creating a positive environment for entrepreneurs is building ecosystems and friendly regulatory frameworks which makes is easy to do business in a country/region.

Talking of environment, Bahrain has clearly taken a lead when it comes to pushing forth the case for Fintech Startups. In the month of March 2017, The Bahrain Economic Development Board(EDB) signed a deal with Singapore’s Fintech Consortium and UAE’s Trucial Investment Partners to develop a Fintech ecosystem and a regulatory framework.

The kingdom of Bahrain has already established regulatory incubators where Fintech startups can test their business models and their products without any violation of existing financial regulations.

Bahrain is clearly ahead of the curve, when it comes to jumping the Fintech bandwagon earlier than some of its neighbors in the GCC region. Financial services have traditionally been Bahrain’s forte and pride, with many international and local banks having their presence in the island kingdom. However, much of that traditional advantage has been lost to Dubai in recent times. Hence, focusing on Fintech provides the much-needed momentum to Bahrain’s financial services industry.

As a testimony to the ease of doing business in Bahrain, we take pride in the fact that we have our operational head office in Bahrain. Not to mention, the favorable regulations and government support has enabled us to scale our operations.

7 years ago
Currencies Form the Core of Payments
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Currencies Form the Core of Payments

It’s a no-brainer! Everybody out there knows that to buy or sell any product or service through any medium, one would need a transacting currency. The status quo on most transactions, whether online or offline, is the fact that you would need to pay in the currency of the country where you are buying the product from, even if it is online.

But, with the advent of global e-commerce, the status quo on currencies while transacting becomes a deterrent. It is largely due to the willingness of most payments solution providers not to deal with the cumbersome regulations in place in most countries which provide a hindrance for multi-currency payments being made online.

It is not as much as a regulation problem, as it is a regulatory acceptance problem. Most regulators, as in central banks haven’t yet figured out a way to regulate payments in foreign currencies made in multiple currencies through the digital medium. Barring the most accepted currency, i.e. the US Dollar, which is largely used as a de-facto foreign exchange currency across the world, regulators are mostly wary about international payments made in other currencies, especially online.

Having said that, most developed countries and a few forward looking emerging economies have updated their regulations to allow for payments in multiple currencies. However, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t many providers in the market, who possess a seamless global payments processor.

PayTabs has always been ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and one of our key differentiating factor is the fact that we accept 160+ currencies on our platform.

To learn more about our payments platform, click here. Moreover, if you are interested, you can sign up for a free demo as well.

We encourage you to comment on this post, by providing your insights and viewpoints.

7 years ago
The State of Global Payments: Part 2
Mohab Super Merchants 0

The State of Global Payments: Part 2

In one of our earlier posts, we touched upon the upsurge in non-cash transactions across the world and how developing countries are driving the growth of online/digital payments. We looked at some hard numbers from Capgemini’s World Payments Report which justified the growth in non-cash transactions across the world.

In this piece, we will look at key trends that are key to driving global payments in 2017 and the future:

  1. Technology vis-à-vis International E-Commerce: It is indeed true that international transactions have increased in recent times but the subsequent pace of developing fast, secure, transparent and efficient solutions have not quite been there. Currently, there’s a need for more payments solution to cater to the growth in international e-commerce.

 

  1. Need for Agility and Pace: Whilst the growth in FinTech investments over the years, there is currently a tremendous hunger in the marketplace, for companies to deliver more instant gratification moments in terms of payments and flexibilities in payments solutions. Which means different types of payments solutions accepting multiple currencies.

 

  1. Enterprise Payments: As per the World Bank’s Cost of Sending Remittances report, checks are still prevalent in most organizations across the world, especially smaller organizations. As of 2015, 90% of small organizations across the world, used checks for making payments, primarily to freelancers and commission based sales force. Large banks and credit card technology companies still dominate the international payments space, which is plagued by complexities and very high fees. There’s a huge scope for new age payments solutions providers to solve some pressing international payments issue in the B2B space.

 

  1. The case of the Unbanked: According to a Citibank report in March 2016, there are still 2.8 billion unbanked and underbanked people in the world, especially in developing countries, where FinTech solutions have outpaced the penetration of legacy banking. The key to the growth of FinTech and Payments solutions has been because of the huge growth in mobile payments, aided by the tremendous penetration of mobile in developing countries.

 

  1. Banks and Technology need to be friends: Banks need to accept and recognize the fact that digital payments can do much more than automation. Digital and online payments solution providers shouldn’t view banks as their adversaries, rather recognize the value that they are adding to the global financial system, thereby cultivating opportunities for greater innovation and efficiency through collaboration.

 

  1. Transparency: There’s been a paradigm shift in the needs of the global payments market, in the context of more transparent pricing, flexibility in integrations and innovative customer service. It is an imperative for global payments solution providers to track all transactions in the entire payment process/cycle to ensure transparency.

 

Therefore, as you can probably gauge that despite growth in FinTech and digital payments, there remains a lot of opportunities/gaps in the marketplace that needs to be fulfilled/filled.

We would love to hear your viewpoints in the comments below and click here to experience a new economy payments solution that truly manages to fill existing gaps and adds tremendous value for your business.

Click here to read State of Global Payments: Part 1

7 years ago
Payments Form The Core of Digital India
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Payments Form The Core of Digital India

The Indian e-commerce market is estimated to grow to $102.8 Billion by 2020. With a growing internet penetration and a plethora of private and government commercial services being offered through the web, that number doesn’t seem unrealistic.  India is by far, one among the top 3 markets for e-commerce globally. If you thought the $100 bn+ figure is staggering, hold your breath because leading research consulting firm Boston Consulting Group(BCG) estimates that the Indian Digital Payments Industry will grow to $500 Billion by 2020.

In recent times, the world has seen a FinTech revolution and India has been at the forefront of spearheading that revolution. The increase in adoption of digital and mobile payments has been staggering and as a testimony, 50% of India’s population is expected to be part of the digital payments industry 2020, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

The growth has been driven by a tremendous government push in digital payments arena fueled by the Digital India proposition.  Several government services at the federal and the state level have migrated in the digital space and encourage digital payments. The growth has been also aided by the fact that majority of the population has an Aadhar card number, which enabled reliable delivery of many essential services through authentic verification.

Having said that, the Indian digital payments scene is largely focused around domestic payments. There’s a large untapped market for international payments. We know that the regulations for international payments is not easy in India, but things are changing rapidly. There is tremendous scope for Indian exporters who are selling online, internationally to ramp up their operations. Not to mention, there’s enough room for exporters who aren’t online, to get their businesses online and sell to the world.

PayTabs is uniquely positioned as a key player in the Indian Payments space, specializing in International Payments. You can visit our website for more information and sign up for a demo if you would like to explore the power of our end to end international payments solution.

7 years ago
How’s Fintech Accelerating the Digital India Vision!
Mohab Super Merchants 0

How’s Fintech Accelerating the Digital India Vision!

Digital India has been at the very heart of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision and the Fintech Industry has been at the forefront of that vision by enabling technologies that fundamentally change the way Indians transact in the new economy.  The statistics point to a large scale Fintech movement taking shape in India:

  • The Indian Fintech industry is poised to grow to $2.4 Billion by 2020.
  • The total transaction value of the entire Indian Fintech industry is forecasted to reach $73 Billion in 2020 growing at a CAGR of 22%

The tremendous talent advantage that India has coupled with the cost benefit provides a lucrative proposition for Fintech start-ups to sprout in India or to have bases in India. The increasing adoption of Fintech technologies by the large base of Indian consumers has positioned India as an attractive market worldwide. The primary players of any Fintech ecosystem include the following

  • Government & Regulators
  • Investors
  • Financial Institutions
  • Incubators, Accelerators, Innovation Hubs
  • Start-ups
  • Tech Vendors

For any upcoming industry to thrive in a vast and complex country like India there needs to be enough impetus from the government in terms of policies, infrastructure and taxes to build confidence among entrepreneurs.

In a diverse economy such as India, a wide range of Fintech products and services are required to cover the needs of a diverse demographic. Fortunately, India has the entire range of new age Fintech products and services, be it insurance financial services marketplaces, payment gateways, mobile wallets and payment aggregators.

As a testimony to the Indian market, PayTabs has recently started operations in India and you can experience the full scale of PayTabs’ global payment processor for receiving international payments by signing up for a free demo. We are a leading enabler in connecting Indian merchants to buyers across the world.

Data Sources: KPMG India Fintech Report

 

 

7 years ago