Elevating the consumer journey through instant payments

Digital Payments
Digital Payments

Efficiency and speed of payments continue to be a key factor in providing the most engaging user experience and journey for bettors. 

‘Transforming your payments strategy with open banking’, in conjunction with TrueLayer, was the latest SBC Webinar, which brought together industry experts to discuss how payment efficiency can be elevated for operators. 

Questioning whether payments are instant, Natalie Dunne, Head of Payments at Paddy Power Betfair detailed: “I think when you look at pay-ins, I think they are when you look at most of Europe now pay-ins are instant. 

“There is obviously a lot that operators do on their side around having safer gambling rules that make some of them not so instant, but from a general perspective, pay-ins are instant. When we look at payouts, that’s not really the case and I do believe you should be able to pay in instantly, you should be able to get your funds out instantly as well. You as a customer should have full control over what is yours and that is not the case in Europe at the moment.

“We look at Visa Direct, that is a solution, but it’s only there for a small portion of customers and depends on which card type they have. We look at the different e-wallets and there are different withdrawals as well, but it’s not really back to your bank account so if you don’t want to use those funds elsewhere you have to then go through the process of getting them back to your bank account.”

Jim Noakes, Head of Payment Innovation at GVC Holdings: “We talk about instant pay-ins and the gambling customers have long been used to using their debit card and getting the funds straight away. But, you’ve got to remember as far as the finance director is concerned, he is not getting his money until two or three days later. People tend to forget about that part of that settlement. The funds flow into gambling companies, potentially coming in a lot quicker, not just on the way out.”

He went onto underline his belief that if instant was such a significant factor for customers then Skrill and PayPal would be bigger players than they are, adding that same-day withdrawals could well be a desirable target for firms. 

George Davis Product Lead – Payments, TrueLayer shared his insight, stating: “I think this is where services that are built around bank transfer rails really win out, especially with what Jim was saying with regards to banking days compared to real days. So, using services like faster payments, we get better coverage, so no matter when the payment goes in, it’s going to go through immediately.” 

View the full webinar on-demand here.