Originally published on iGB
When it comes to getting the payments process right first time, the stakes have never been higher. Research shows over half of customers who experience payment failure at any stage of a transaction will not complete their purchase. Viktoriia Degtiarova, co-founder of Paysecure, unpicks the industry’s challenges and opportunities.
What are main considerations when it comes to the payments landscape in iGaming?
We know players make a number of decisions at the payment stage of play; am I going to enjoy this platform once I’ve paid? How long will I have to wait for payment to be processed? Which payment methods are available? What are the limits? How quick will the payout be? They may not vocalise these questions explicitly, but operators need to have the answers in order for players to part with their money and play on.
This may be why, across all sectors, 62% of customers who experience a failure at the payment stage of a transaction will not complete a purchase, impacting both the first transaction and every other transaction after that. So what can operators do to counter this? They need to put the customer experience at the payment stage at the heart of their offering. This means elevating acceptance, increasing conversion, mitigating fraud and chargebacks, and reducing friction in the process.
Research from Paysafe shows that 78% of bettors consider the payment experience important in why they use a specific operator. New solutions available to the entire market are helping to democratise the industry by improving the customer experience with improved analytics and ever-customisable solutions in a more cost-effective ecosystem.
What are the challenges the industry is facing?
Operators face a myriad of challenges in today’s iGaming market. Customer acquisition remains challenging as experienced gamers have built brand loyalty with certain games and operators, and new clients can be expensive to acquire. Once customers have been acquired, retaining them is more difficult than ever before. There’s more competition in the market, and with market-leading operators able to lose money on new customers, challenger brands face an intense race to the bottom if price is the only consideration.
Furthermore, player needs and wants are constantly changing and the industry cannot be complacent and think customer preferences will remain static. The iGaming sector is at the forefront of innovation, with more games, more competitive pricing, and ever evolving technology, changing player habits as the market develops and grows.
Perhaps more importantly, the barriers to entry that players face remain a key hurdle for operators. Fraud checks, compliance checks in complex jurisdictions, local payment methods, data protection, and speed of payments are all issues that players face in their journey between landing on a platform and completing a purchase. With what seems to be greater regulatory and government interest in the gaming industry, as we’re seeing in the UK at the moment, we, as the industry, may face further challenges to navigate in the mid term.
Nations are opening new markets such as Brazil and India or tightening rules in Germany and the Netherlands to enhance player protection, control growth, and secure tax revenue, leading to a more licensed international landscape. With a potential gambling tax and mandatory affordability checks potentially set to be a hurdle to access the UK and other global markets, operators will need to deal with further regulatory challenges as markets become more fragmented in their approach to iGaming.
But regulatory complexities across markets are not the only challenge for operators. Different markets may have local preferred payment methods, such as MobilePay in Denmark or iDEAL in the Netherlands. These all require different PSPs and thus, need to be routed correctly to maintain a smooth customer experience and ensure the right payment methods are served to the right person at the right time.
Furthermore, currency fluctuations, economic conflicts, and political pressures, which are beyond the control of the players in different jurisdictions, are factors operators must consider and adapt to in order to remain competitive with those who continue to cater for all markets at scale and at speed.
What is the role of payments orchestration in iGaming?
What role do orchestration and cashier solutions play in these challenges for operators? From the outside, they may seem beyond the scope of many of these issues, but they touch all of these pain points that customers experience. This is why it can help operators set their platform apart from the rest of the pack.
The payment stage is the crucial period where all marketing efforts either drive behaviour change or not. At Paysecure, we can see how subtle edits at the cashier stage can be the crucial change needed to drive greater customer conversion. Gaining real-time performance insights can help operators make more informed decisions to drive player conversion.
“We see that when operators use the analytics and customisable workflows from our cashier solutions, they see iGaming transaction approval rates rise by up to 7%.”
This is because the data collected at the cashier stage is user-specific and enables segmentation. Along with all of the other insights collated across the payment flow, this helps operators capture clear insights on behaviour. Orchestration and its product suite provides the foundation to build a highly optimised strategy to improve your customer’s experience.
For example, if players experience friction in the deposit or withdrawal process, operators are likely to lose repeat custom and drive their hard-earned custom elsewhere.
We see that when operators use the analytics and customisable workflows from our cashier solutions, they see iGaming transaction approval rates rise by up to 7%.
So if you recognise in the data that players are dropping off at the payment stage in Kenya, testing and integrating the local M-PESA payment solution could drive greater conversion and repeat custom in that particular market. Paysafe research found 26% of players prioritise favourite payment method availability when selecting a sportsbook.
They also found that streamlined payouts were players’ top factor when choosing who to play with – prioritised by 37% of gamers. By integrating both cashier and orchestration solutions, operators can take advantage of the entire Paysecure smart routing solution, as part of its orchestration suite of products or as a modular programme, in order to offer more payment solutions to keep players playing and removing barriers to entry.
Use cases for this level of personalisation range from removing unnecessary checks for known VIP clients to reduce barriers to play, to ensuring all fraud and security measures are part of the process for unknown players in grey markets. This allows for different segments to experience play safely, securely, and seamlessly, encouraging customer acquisition and repeat business.
Beyond the UX insights, orchestration solutions allow for much more detailed analytics and insights into each and every customer profile. These insights range from high level drop off and conversion data, right down to the time between landing on a payment page plus the transaction being completed. These insights can help operators understand the process clients go through from being acquired to converting into fully subscribed players.
Simply connecting to multiple Payment Service Providers (PSPs) isn’t enough. The key is to send every single transaction down the optimal path in real-time. A best-in-class orchestration platform, such as Paysecure’s solution, employs a success-rate first routing policy, with an optional, highly effective cost-optimisation layer.
Smart routing triggers, such as location, payment method, repeat visitor, BIN number, device, or time of day, allows operators to customise the journey for individual customers in real time to ensure players have the most seamless play experience possible. This includes the cashier stage of the journey where the routing engine can adapt quickly if there is a failover or retry trigger, ensuring the transaction is routed elsewhere so players don’t feel the friction in the process.
What solutions are there for operators?
Cynics suggest that cost and technological barriers prevent smaller operators from accessing top-tier payment solutions. We’re aiming to change this by empowering operators with essential infrastructure, regardless of their internal tech resources or budget.
Our dynamic cashier product exemplifies this, offering the most customisable solution on the market. It provides deep insights into user behaviour, improving conversion and reducing fraud. Clients gain complete control over the deposit and withdrawal process, enabling seamless, multi-currency flows and transforming payments into a competitive advantage.
This enhanced cashier experience can boost conversion by up to 7% and increase deposit value by up to 35%. Operators can extend brand experience, localise user flows, and gain deeper insights into player behaviour at the cashier stage. Performance analysis, combined with advanced AI tools, helps optimise the experience, increase acceptance rates, and reduce friction. The solution also allows personalised promotions and notifications, improving player engagement and retention, especially for VIP customers, by offering perks or faster processing.
We understand the need for testing and learning. All customisable elements, including colors, logos, and call-to-action buttons, can be tested in a sandbox and deployed live within minutes. This includes taxation parameters, surcharge fees, transaction thresholds, and currency settings, giving operators unparalleled control.
The cashier is crucial for player conversion and loyalty. Our fully customisable, dynamic cashier enables operators to create on-brand, localised journeys. While players interact with the front-end solution, Paysecure’s internal engine manages personalisation, smart routing, fraud checks, and orchestration. This backend allows customisation, testing, and reporting to continually enhance the customer experience.
What are the top three ways iGaming operators can optimise an orchestration solution?
For iGaming operators, here are my top three ways you can optimise your orchestration solution for growth and improved customer experience: Player-centric payments journeys, global consistency and robust security
Putting players at the centre of your offering and creating a payment solution around them reduces the pain points for players and thus, gives them a barrier-less journey from acquisition to conversion and retainment. This is driven by solutions that help to deliver a dynamic experience relevant for the player, such as Paysecure’s dynamic cashier, smart routing, and insights solutions.
Being globally consistent also helps put players at the centre of your offering. Delivering a great experience to players, regardless of their location, language, preferred payment solution, or processing partner, means all customers feel looked after and equal, building trust in your brand. Players are more likely to complete their first transaction and return if they feel their vendor is closer to the market that they are in. By using Paysecure’s insights, operators can personalise the offering to different markets using intelligent routing and customer segmentation to hyper-personalise their platform to give them the best chance of acquiring and retaining custom.
Finally, ensuring your platform is secure and trusted increases your standing and reputation with players globally, helping to drive returning custom. By mitigating fraud with player intelligence delivered through solutions such as Paysecure’s orchestration technology, transaction encryption, and our unique User Trust Score algorithm, players can game confidently, knowing them and their money is safe in play with you and operators reduce risk by only pulling irregular transactions.
While orchestration technology solutions have historically been expensive, time-consuming to produce, and reserved only for the largest, market-leading operators, at Paysecure, we’re changing the game by empowering operators by giving them the best-in-class infrastructure to compete at every level of gaming in any market. Now, for the first time ever, this level of technology is available to all operators, removing the cost barrier for the market, democratising the orchestration market and fundamentally changing the payment experience for players globally.
Why do you consider frictionless payments so central to an operator’s iGaming strategy?
The payment stage of the user experience is where operators win or lose business. This is why every iGaming business should have their payment solution at the heart of their offering. Doing this will ensure they give themselves every possible advantage to convert as much traffic as possible, retain players, and keep their most valuable customers happy for longer.
At Paysecure, we’re changing the game by empowering operators to help them put payments at the heart of their offering and removing the barriers for them to access the best technology. As the market continues to change, evolve, and become more competitive, there will only be a greater focus on the user experience and payment journey. Now is the time to embrace this and gain the competitive edge.
