EMERCHANTPAY
BARRIERS TO PAYMENTS PERFORMANCE
While payments teams recognise the need to prioritise performance across the payments eco- system, many are struggling to implement the required processes, skills and resources. Far too often within gambling operators, payments performance takes a back seat to other, seemingly more pressing priorities, particularly compliance obligations around ever-changing regulations. In addition, optimisation is held back by budgetary constraints, outdated technology and tools, or a lack of appropriate partners and vendors. Where operators are attempting to improve performance across their payments eco-system, they are hampered by a lack of data and insight to make decisions and optimise processes. More than three quarters (76%) of gambling payments leaders report that analysing payments data is a challenge within their organisation; either they cannot access data in the first place, or else they don’t have the skills and tools to turn data into meaningful actionable insight which can drive performance. Having clear visibility and understanding of current activity and processes across all payment infrastructure is absolutely critical to optimising performance yet, remarkably, despite all the talk about data-driven payments, in the vast majority of operators, payments decisions are being taken ‘in the dark’.
At a broader, organisational level, senior leadership within the gambling sector remains ambivalent towards payments, with a lack of understanding about the importance of instilling a modern, agile payments infrastructure within the organisation. Only 39% of payments leaders feel that the wider business fully recognises the value of optimising payments performance, and only 35% believe that business stakeholders fully understand the benefits of an agile payment infrastructure.
Innovation continues to be the holy grail for gambling operators, driven by fear of falling behind the competition. In fact, more than in any other industry, senior business leaders in the gambling sector are more interested in innovation and transformation within payments, rather than looking at current systems and delivery. Three quarters (78%) of payments leaders within gambling report that innovation is more important than maintaining high levels of performance in payments within their organisation. The unfortunate consequence of this Board-level around payments, is that payment leaders simply cannot generate the support, resources and investment
PUTTING PERFORMANCE FIRST
As operators continue to navigate an uncertain marketplace, characterised by non-stop disruption and a constantly shifting regulatory and competitive landscape, the need to ‘do more with less’ more acute. This is particularly true when it comes to payments performance. Of course, innovation will continue to play a central role in the evolution on the gambling sector, within payments and beyond, but the unswerving focus on the future needs to be balanced with a genuine commitment to ensuring that today’s payments processes are fully optimised and delivering as much value as possible to operators. Currently, too many operators are ‘leaving money on the table’ by not offering their customers the fastest, easiest, most possible and by not fully understanding, detecting and preventing fraud.
Operators (both payments
professionals and senior leaders) need to take a step back and analyse their entire payments set-up. What is it that they are looking to achieve through their payments strategy? What does success look like, in terms of customer growth? And how are they tracking, measuring and evaluating these metrics across all areas of their payments eco-system? Without this information, operators simply cannot gauge how effective their payments operations for measuring and optimising payments performance in all areas and to develop a roadmap to ensure that performance becomes the lens through which all payments strategy is developed.
Within the gambling sector, we need to develop a more thorough appreciation of payments performance, both the negative impact of poor line) and the potential for optimised performance to drive brand loyalty and sales.
Payments teams should seek out the support and resources they need to build robust business cases to secure the internal buy-in and investment required to address performance issues and implement the right processes and behaviours within their teams. Performance must no longer be neglected.
There is not a single area of payments where payments leaders in the gambling sector are fully satisfied with their performance
GIO SEPTEMBER 2019 99
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