PayU On How ‘Transactions Will Power Everything In The Future’

We spoke to attendees at Money 20/20 to ask them their views on payment trends, predictions for the coming year and what the ideal payments ecosystem looks like.

Here’s our interaction with Raj Kamal, head of strategy at PayU.

PYMNTS: What are the Top 3 trends in the payments industry?

RK: ECommerce has been growing twice as fast in the emerging markets than in the developed world. To give you an example, growth rates in India and China are over 30 percent, mostly attributed to the rapid growth on the back of smartphones. These markets are leapfrogging to smartphones, skipping broadband due to the easy access to low-end mobile phones. While eCommerce is going global, we notice that the more local you are, you are able to serve merchants and customers better. We see reinforcement of local players providing much better outcome. Biometrics for authentication will become mainstream.

PYMNTS: What are your predictions for moving forward into 2016?

RK: Omnichannel will be visible. We will see online retailers doing more brick and mortar to enrich the shopping experience. We will see a massive growth in big data analysis in services like merchant lending. The difference between FinTech and payments will blur because transactions and data will power a lot of things we do.

PYMNTS: In a perfect world, what does the ideal payment system look like?

RK: A smartphone becoming a dominant way of payments. The emerging world is not a card user. The emerging world is moving from cash to smartphones. I’m inclined to believe smartphones will lead to payments moving significantly.

Raj Kamal heads Strategy, M&A and special projects for payments and FinTech across markets – Eastern Europe, India, LatAm and Africa at PayU.