The sophistication and intricacies associated with numerous facets of the gambling industry spread far and wide, but this is arguably never more evident than within payments protocols.
Many entities work intensely to smooth over a range of processes, but PaymentIQ believes that it has stolen a march on the competition courtesy of Cashier Plus, which has received the crucial early backing of Stake.
The three-part product, comprising a builder, live preview, and data engine, is tasked with elevating the player journey by placing the cashier’s design, testing, and performance evidence directly in the hands of payments teams.
In the first part of an SBC Summit roundtable, Neil D’Souza, CEO of PaymentIQ, and Hayden Sharland, Head of Payments at Stake, elaborate on the business opportunities that Cashier Plus solves, why this product was identified as critical and the reason behind the operator’s early move.
What would you highlight as some of the biggest challenges that are affecting gambling when it comes to the payments industry?
Hayden Sharland: For us, it’s about how many countries we’re working in, how many payment methods, how many different PSPs – that’s a lot of overhead, challenges, relationships and integrations.
That’s the beauty of PaymentIQ. They do a lot of the heavy lifting for us in the integrations and the introductions, and make it super easy for us to conquer the world.
Neil D’Souza: I’ve personally been in payments for 15 years, and I strongly believe that iGaming as a market, is one of the most complex from a payment perspective.
There are three things. Firstly, it’s a fragmented market. Operators such as Stake operate in 100 plus markets, and they need to build at least three times the number of provider connections per market. That’s one of the things that we solve for them.
Secondly is the regulatory load. As regulations in various regions keep increasing, that means they need to be agile, so we are able to assist them with that.
The third is the acceptance rate and the cost. With multiple payment providers in every market, that allows them to optimise both their acceptance rates as well as managing their cost better.
What protocols do you have in place when it comes to researching the gaps that exist and how PaymentIQ could plug these?
NDS: The first thing we do is actually listen. That’s how Cashier Plus came about. We always want to keep our ears on the ground. We keep talking to our merchants and understanding what their pain areas are. That’s our starting point.
I’ve been in different industries, and one of the biggest mistakes everyone makes, as a payment expert, is getting drawn into believing that I know payments so well.
I know what the merchant needs, but it’s exactly the other way around. I need to understand what their needs are to be able to build a solution that will help them. The shiniest product could be of no use.
You’ve mentioned Cashier Plus. Talk us through this, and why do you believe that this was a necessary introduction to your portfolio?
NDS: One of the things that we have heard from all of our operators is that they spend millions in acquiring customers, and then we see in a few difficult or volatile markets that acceptance rates can effectively double.
We believe that the Cashier is a point where there is a huge room for optimisation.
Today, the cashier is a black box, so how can we give our operators more visibility, and more access to user behaviors, patterns and data? How can we use data to optimise?
That is where the whole idea of Cashier Plus came about. We spoke to around 15 or 16 merchants, and did workshopping with them for several months to understand where their challenges are, and what they think are the various data points that would help them.
That’s how it all started, and that’s how we built it.
Stake is one of the early adopters of Cashier Plus. What did you see and hear about the product that convinced you that this was a necessary step that you had to take?
HS: The positive for us as early adopters is that we can help shape and make it work for our needs and scale.
We have so many different countries and different payment requirements for each. This really helps us improve at speed, and really helps us understand where the conversion is dropping off.
That gives us the ability to try new things and go ‘let’s try option A and let’s try option B, and see what’s working better?’
Ten basis points in conversion is huge for us even in a small market, and this helps us grow.
The other side is about helping us understand the speed at which our customers are going through the journey and how we can simplify that.
The payment step is like the referee in a sports game. The best payment experience is the one that’s unnoticed. The best referee is the one that’s unnoticed.
You get through it so quickly. You don’t want any friction. The fewer clicks the better, and this helps us really optimise.
