A positive user experience for online gaming is underpinned by players’ desire for simplicity and seamlessness when it comes to payments. Delivering a fast and secure way for players to deposit and withdraw funds is essential for customer retention, but ensuring this is scalable globally is a particularly difficult task.
Enter Trustly, a provider of Open Banking payments, which is seeking to help operators deliver a better user experience with its payments engine.
Western European ambitions
Trustly – a trusted global provider of payment solutions – is setting its sights firmly on the Netherlands and Germany, two key western European nations that have endured regulatory uncertainty in recent times.
Nevertheless, the firm is confident that it can be a leader in payments in these two markets, due to its awareness of the specific circumstances in each country. In Germany for example, most payments are made via Sofort. While in the Netherlands, most payments are made via the iDEAL network.
But Trustly is doubling down its efforts to be a leading provider in those two markets by adapting to the key requirements of both jurisdictions.
“Germany has a very fractured banking market. Hence, we can greatly improve the user experience through our ability to recognise users across our network and instantly present them with the correct bank option, as opposed to having to search through all the different bank branches.” explained Olof Wirfelt, Trustly’s Chief Commercial Officer.
Meanwhile in the Dutch market, Trustly works as a reseller of the iDEAL solution which, together with its product capabilities, allows it to offer merchants an iDEAL+ package. This includes the core functionality of iDEAL plus same-day settlements, Trustly’s proprietary product as a down-time fallback and a 24/7 instant payout/withdrawal capability.
Wirfelt elaborated: “The Netherlands is becoming a key market to us which is a great example of how we can enhance our offering through partnerships with local payment methods and ultimately deliver the best possible product suite to our merchants.”
Players require personalisation in payments
Another defining feature of the payment space in recent years is the development of Open Banking technology, which Trustly is a market leader in. The launch of the firm’s Azura data engine, which was rolled out in 2023, has allowed customers to have a more personalised experience when playing online.
Azura recognises users based on their previous behaviours, which in turn, results in fewer steps to complete a deposit. Following the implementation of Azura, Trustly has delivered a 20% shorter time to complete a payment and recorded a 98.8% conversion rate.
In an “off the shelf” Open Banking payment experience, there are several friction points and how Trustly differentiates from many other providers in this field is through removing such friction. This is done through the firm’s banking network and its ability to route and clear transactions effectively.
Wirfelt added: “The Azura data engine lets Trustly instantly recognise a player and present their last-used bank account for them to transact with. Even if they’re using Trustly for the first time on a specific merchant’s website, this is possible as long as they have deposited using Trustly on any other gaming or non-gaming website at least once before.
“Not only does it create a seamless and consistent experience every time they deposit – across device, merchant and vertical where Trustly is offered – it also makes the flow faster with a single SCA measure, as well as more secure as the customer is identified already before the payment happens.”
2024 is proving to be an exceptionally productive year for Trustly as it reaps the rewards of taking the Azura data engine live in multiple markets. The firm is continuing to assert itself as a trusted partner for gaming operators in global markets by providing user-friendly and secure payment solutions.
As the year goes on, Trustly aims to make even more improvements to its platform, including the continuing roll-out of Azura to all markets. As technology and markets develop further, Trustly continues to innovate and seeks to improve its model around player identification so that its personalisation features are optimum.
